Cyber Monday Breaks Record With More Than $1 billion in Sales Online

The report's at Los Angeles Times.

But this gives me a chance to post the Target lady one more time. She's not on the Internet:

Why America's Enemies Love Obama's New START Treaty

From the Center for Security Policy:

PREVIOUSLY: "Obama Evokes Reagan in Push for New Start Treaty," and "Trust Russia on START?"

Amazon Hosts WikiLeaks?

Oh, great. What a way to start the morning. I sell Amazon products on my blog and I learn that Amazon hosts WikiLeaks on its servers? Sometimes there's no justice in the world.

At WSJ, "WikiLeaks Using Amazon Servers After Attack":

WikiLeaks, the website that published a quarter-million sensitive diplomatic cables on Sunday, is using Amazon.com Inc. servers in the U.S. to help deliver its information. It sounds like an odd choice, but it could make sense.

The site cablegate.wikileaks.org, which WikiLeaks is using for the diplomatic documents, is linked to servers run by Amazon Web Services in Seattle, as well as to French company Octopuce. Wikileaks.org, the site’s front page, links back to Amazon servers in the U.S. and in Ireland. Several Internet watchers, including technologist Alex Norcliffe, reported earlier on WikiLeaks’ use of Amazon services.

Amazon and WikiLeaks did not return requests for comment.

The choice of Amazon, a U.S. company, seems strange given the amount of criticism WikiLeaks has received from the U.S. government. Rep. Peter King of New York, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Sunday saying he supported charging WikiLeaks activist Julian Assange under the Espionage Act.

But experts said it was unlikely that Amazon would face legal action for selling services to WikiLeaks. For one thing, now that the information disclosed by the site is already public, it might not be considered contraband, said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of law and computer science at Harvard University.

“If that data happens in the moment to be in the U.S., that’s really good because we have a First Amendment,” said Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia Law School.

Mr. Moglen added that, although where hardware is located can make a difference legally, there wouldn’t be much point in getting Amazon to stop providing services to WikiLeaks. “For all practical purposes … if the law is unfavorable, that Web server process will go somewhere else,” he said.

Maybe it's no so bad after all: "It’s Good That Wikileaks Is Using Amazon’s Servers."

Palin Hauls in Nearly $500k In Just Over a Month

I wrote "Can Palin Win the 2012 GOP Nomination?" in July 2009, when Sarah Palin stepped down as Governor of Alaska. She was the "it girl" back then as much as she is now, which is amazing considering how much has happened since then. But one of the points I raised on Palin's chances for the 2012 nomintion was campaign finance:

Palin's two biggest goals can be summed up thus: Iowa and New Hampshire. Politically, Palin needs money. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama raised $100 million in 2007, the year leading into the primaries. The "entry fee" for the 2012 primaries will probably be twice that.

I expected Palin to be a blockuster fundraiser, and it's happening. See Jay Newton-Small (via Memeorandum):

Sarah Palin raised $469,000 between Oct. 13 and Nov. 22 bringing her total for the year to over $3 million, Tim Crawford, SarahPAC's treasurer, told TIME exclusively. Crawford attributed the surge of funds to energy surrounding the midterm elections, Palin's endorsements and her TLC reality show “Sarah Palin's Alaska.” Her second book, America By Heart, came out Nov. 23.

The PAC spent $64,000 buying advance copies of her books, “just as we did last year” with her first book, Going Rogue, Crawford said. “They're a great fundraising tool for us.” Palin is in the midst of a two-week cross-country book tour.

Overall the PAC spent $581,000 between Oct. 13 and Nov. 22. ...

Barbara O'Brien's Mahablog: Apparently Not the Place for Scintillating Debate

I've been blogging long enough to know better. Barbara O'Brien, who posted on WikiLeaks, writes "Donald Douglas is too stupid to recognize obvious sarcasm, mistaking it for 'fawning'." Perhaps. But I thought the charge merited a response: "Progressives and WikiLeaks."

I tracked-back at Barbara's, and what do we find?

Barbara responds dismissively, "Some people don’t know when to quit." I guess that's supposed to be sarcastic, if not original.

And then c u n d gulag, Barbara's in-house demonic pustule, left this:

DON’T click on AmericanNEOCLOWN’s link!!!

This turd pops up on the web and does this all the time, hoping to get people to go to his insipid website. Hey, NEOCLOWNIE, I’m sorry to see you back. I figured the cops finally had you on moral’s charges when you exposed your thimble-sized member to the JH School boys gym class. I guess there wasn’t enough evidence, huh?

I've seen c u n d gulag's similarly crude remarks before. Sadly representative of the intellectual firepower of today's netroots secular demons. I'm frankly astonished sometimes at the depths of leftist vulgarity. And the commentary is hardly better at LGM, where I also tracked back. Serves me right, in any case. I'm idealistic enough to believe that a reasoned, evidentiary argument would elicit a reasoned response. Call me stupid. Oh, wait, they already did.

NewsBusted — 'Jihadist Teen Arrested for Attempted Oregon Bombing'

Via Theo:

Drive Time Tuesday

From yesterday, November 30th.

The playlist from The Sound L.A. in the morning. I fired up the car just as the first chords of "White Wedding started jamming. Enjoyed ELP as well:

07:08am Black Water by Doobie Brothers

07:04am Sunshine Of Your Love by Cream

06:59am Magic Man by Heart

06:50am From The Beginning by Emerson Lake & Palmer

06:46am Walk This Way by Aerosmith

06:44am Paperback Writer by Beatles (remastered)

06:35am Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd

06:30am Come Sail Away by Styx

06:23am Just A Song Before I Go by Crosby, Stills, And Nash

06:19am White Wedding by Billy Idol

Julian Assange Wanted by Interpol

At Business Week, "Interpol Adds WikiLeaks Founder to Wanted List for Rape Charge," and Telegraph UK, "WikiLeaks Cables: Julian Assange Lies Low After Unleashing Tempest."

Interpol's Assange page is here.

I should have more on WikiLeaks tomorrow, but The Lede has a great roundup, "Latest Updates on Leak of U.S. Cables." The post links to "Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; “To destroy this invisible government”." (Also at Memeorandum.) It's a long discourse on Assange's 2006 essay, "State and Terrorist Conspiracies." Skimming over the former's analysis of the latter, it's a bit overdone. More later, in any case.

Hmm ... The Civil War Was Never Really About Slavery?

A very interesting piece at NYT, "Celebrating Secession Without the Slaves."

Immediately upon seeing this I figured I'd clicked over to Little Green Footballs, and what do you know?

"For Civil War 150th, Neo-Confederates Consign Slavery to the Memory Hole."

I don't really see a passage worth quoting at the Times, although one paragraph comes awfully close to merging the Sons of Confederate Veterans with the tea parties. And then of course there's the obligatory quotation from Mark Potok, who's cited as "the director of intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center." I used to trust the SPLC, mainly because I don't discount the lingering existence Jim Crow racism, however residual. But whatever amount of that there is in fact, it's been superceded by the more problematic race-baiting industry that's killing free speech in America. William Jacobson's written on this quite a bit recently. See, "Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness," and "SPLC Demonizes Supporters of Traditional Marriage." Moreover, my knowledge of the South is based on textbook learning, which is fairly deep as far as 20th century civil rights goes. Less so on the Civil War however. But Robert Stacy McCain and Stogie at Saberpoint are very good friends of mine, and both had ancesters who fought for the Confedracy. You learn a lot from people with direct experience, and these interactions blow away the rank stereotypes that are used to brand and destroy people. This is Charles Johnson's stock-in-trade nowadays, and look how that's turned out.

In any case, I skimmed over Jefferson Davis' Wikipedia entry as I was looking around for a picture to go with this post. He doesn't seem that impressive of a guy, but his reputation after the war was rehabilitated, and today he represents some of the more noble sentiments of the Old South. I know lots of folks on the left will reject the possibility of anything noble about that Anti-Bellum society, but I'd suggest that people keep an open mind on these things, lest they be poisoned by the likes of SPLC and their race-baiting brethren.

Will 'Dancing With the Stars' Go Queer?

I was gonna say "Will 'Dancing With the Stars' Go Homo?" But "homo" is derogatory, and I'm much too politically correct for that. "Queer" is the acceptable term for the out and proud crowd. See, "A Politically Correct Lexicon: Your ‘How-To’ Guide to Avoid Offending Anyone."

That said, too bad we won't be seeing some of these folks on DWTS. I think it'd be a blast.

At Fox News, "Will 'Dancing With the Stars' Feature a Same-Sex Couple?"

Losing His Cool? Rep. Steve Buyer Hammers Deadbeat Democrat House Speaker Pro Tempore Laura Richardson

For refusing to yield the floor for one minute during House debate. One minute! Sheesh, I'd lose my cool too. But the leftist press wants to play up the "anger" issue and not the "imperial" issue, which is what we see at the full clip. What you don't get is the background: Laura Richardson's one of the most scandal-plagued Democrats in office. But she serves an overwhelmingly disadvantaged constituency so safe that she's unlikely to face a serious challenge to reelection, even after this:

You remember Laura Richardson, right? She’s the Democrat congresswoman who defaulted six times on her home loans and has left a trail of unpaid bills in her wake. Well, she’s back. On behalf of taxpayers in her district, she’s now trying to get money back from Lehman Brothers after an investment gone awry. Hat tip to reader Thomas, who e-mails: “The irony is mighty thick.”

This is why folks want term limits on Members of Congress.

More commentary at AoSHQ, "'This Is Why The American People Have Thrown You Out of Power!'."

Urban is the New Uppity

At PuffHo, "Republican Calls Obama 'Very, Very Urban' On House Floor."

And Oliver Willis is on the case: "They just want to use the 'N' word so badly." (At Memeorandum.)

Progressives and WikiLeaks

I've had intermittent engagement with Professor Charli Carpenter on the utility of WikiLeaks. She's written much in favor of WikiLeaks, very little that's critical. She wrote earlier, in an August essay at Foreign Policy, regarding the Afghanistan document dump:

Assange's indiscriminate approach may have caused undue collateral damage this time around, the extent of which might never be known. But this doesn't mean that the weapons of his trade should be banned or written off altogether. A more targeted whistle-blowing architecture of this type could save civilian lives in warfare -- which is the whole point, after all.

I responded to Charli at "Bloody WikiLeaks." And to repeat:

Charli Carpenter wants to save lives, particularly civilians who are killed or injured in what is otherwise the lawful exercise of military power. The problem is that's not what Julian Assange wants, nor is it what his worldwide backers want. Frankly, I don't think these people care about "human rights" except as a vehicle to chain the United States to supranational norms and to limit America's international power. Thus, I don't think Assange and WikiLeaks should be the agents of the kind of military transparency that Charli proposes.

That opinion still stands.

Charli hasn't written much on the latest release, although she suggests there's nothing new under the sun. I linked her post at Right Wing News earlier: "WikiLeaks U.S. Embassy Cables Release." And my key line, "I continue to be amazed at the fawning credibility Assange gets on the progressive," is getting picked up by some ideological enemies on the left. Poor Barbara O'Brien thinks she's pwned me: "Donald Douglas is too stupid to recognize obvious sarcasm, mistaking it for 'fawning'."

Actually, I'm not mistaking anything with respect to Charli's commentary on WikiLeaks. Yeah, I've posted my share of stupidity, but WikiLeaks commentary is not it. Stupid is as stupid does, in any case. Besides, more bothersome is willful dishonesty, which is what Scott Lemieux is all about: "Did You Know That Charli Was An Uncritical Defender of Wikileaks?" Frankly, that's what all of these progressives are all about, especially since the latest doc dump is making mincemeat of progressive foreign policy. And to that effect, folks should check out Spree at Wake Up America, "Examples of Progressive Liberal Wikileak 'Fawners'." This is an awesome post. Spree captures the absolute glee among some of the left's top bloggers. WikiLeaks is just peachy according to:

Attaturk from Firedoglake.

AmericaBlog.

Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars.

Digby.

BradBlog.

Robert Farley of Lawyers, Gays and Marriage.

Paul Rosenberg from Open Left.

John Cole from Balloon Juice.

That's a roundup from Memeorandum, although I could add a few more to Spree's list. For example, at Newshoggers, "Wikileaks Cablegate: Nothing New But The Truth," and Matthew Rothschild, "Wikileaks and the Reactionary Impulse to Repress."

Leftists love WikiLeaks, which is no surprise, since it's essentially a neo-communist information warfare operation against the U.S. I've written much on this, for example, "How Communists Exploit WikiLeaks," and "Daniel Ellsberg Works to Give Radical Imprimatur to Latest WikiLeaks Disclosures."

What's key this time is that WikiLeaks is making progressives look bad, really bad. Barbara O'Brien's too stupid to break from the pack to call it what it is: a disaster. Sure there's some pushback, from Heather Hurlburt, for example: "Why Wikileaks Is Bad for Progressive Foreign Policy." But on balance leftists are responding to the latest release with equanimity. WikiLeaks is out to destroy establishment institutions, governments and business. And Julian Assange makes no attempt to hide his enmity of the United States. As with all the previous releases, the damage to American interests is enormous. It's no wonder leftists are thrilled, like the neo-communists at Democracy Now!

RELATED: "Whack WikiLeaks."

Whack WikiLeaks

William Kristol seconds that emotion.

At the video, Julian Assange's communist enablers at Democracy Now!

And see John Hawkins, "5 Reasons The CIA Should Have Already Killed Julian Assange."

RELATED: "The Classical Liberal: Israel Bashing Paleocon?"

Prospects for Regime Change in North Korea

At the clip below, with Donald Kirk of the Christian Science Monitor. He speaks toward the end on the extreme dangers of a military overthrow in North Korea, especially a refugee crisis. Interesting how these dangers are raised primarily in the context of outside intervention, and not in the case of an implosion of the dictatorship in Pyongyang. Most problematic is the size of the North Korean forces, with nearly 1,000,000 troops under arms. A military incursion from the south would only be feasible with a combined contingent of American and South Korean units. The U.S. would provide air support off shore through carrier battle groups. Tokyo has indicated its support for military retaliation --- and Japanese military forces were deployed to Iraq in the first outside operations since WWII --- so perhaps the operation could be multilateralized. And then there's China. We can only speculate, but it's unlikely any force options would be available without some kind of support from Beijing. Regime change North Korea would require buy-in from all the major actors, and so far I don't see much realistic discussion of it on the Chinese side. (But see, "Is China About to Throw North Korea Under The Bus?") Certainly China relishes the regional prestige from propping up its NoKo client. But should the Kim dynasty continue its bellicose actions, perhaps leading to the additional loss of life, the situation will be an increasing reminder of the false peace of 1930s Europe. A huge blowout of historic proportions could be expected.

Kirk's got a report from yesterday: "Disillusioned South Korea Weighs Response to North Korean Flare-Up."

And New York Times has another installment on the diplomatic cables: "Leaked Cables Depict a World Guessing About North Korea." And related news at Memeorandum.

Sarah Palin Blasts Obama's WikiLeaks 'Fiasco'

At Politico.

And at Politics Daily: "Sarah Palin Blames WikiLeaks 'Fiasco' on Obama's 'Incompetence'."

Plus, Marc Thiessen interviewed at the clip:

Involuntary Transparency or Information Warfare?

At Forbes (FWIW), "An Interview With WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange" (via Memeorandum):

Admire him or revile him, WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange is the prophet of a coming age of involuntary transparency, the leader of an organization devoted to divulging the world’s secrets using technology unimagined a generation ago. Over the last year his information insurgency has dumped 76,000 secret Afghan war documents and another trove of 392,000 files from the Iraq war into the public domain–the largest classified military security breaches in history. Sunday, WikiLeaks made the first of 250,000 classified U.S. State Department cables public, offering an unprecedented view of how America’s top diplomats view enemies and friends alike.

But, as Assange explained to me earlier this month, the Pentagon and State Department leaks are just the start...

It's information warfare, of course. Assange thinks he's some kinda hero who's creating a marketplace for government and business accountability. Yet he admits he has no respect for state legitimacy nor the international system's regime of legalized rules and norms.

We'll see how that works out for him. At WaPo, "WikiLeaks founder could be charged by Feds."

Say, About That Old 'Bush Lied' Trope...

From Doug Ross, "Say, About That Old 'Bush Lied' Trope, Looks Like Wikileaks Proved Obama Repeatedly Lied About Middle East Policy":

Anyone remember that exactly one year ago President Obama's original deadline for Iran expired?

Back in the halcyon days of hopeychange, newly minted President Barack Obama articulated his master plan for dealing with Iran. Mr. Peabody, set the Wayback Machine for May of 2009 ...

RTWT.

Axis of Evil: One Down Two to Go

There are few presidential slogans more reviled that President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" from his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002. Endlessly ridiculed, leftist media outlets argued such rhetoric "heightened dangers" while some claimed the speech came back to "haunt the U.S." in 2006. But President Bush stayed the course, and Iraq now boasts a democratic government that is unique among Arab states of the Middle East. See, "Seven Years Later, Iraq War Bearing Fruit." Unfortunately the Obama administration's precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces leaves a tenuous security balance between the Iraqi government and its long-time nemesis Iran. At the height of the insurgency Shiite power spread like an arc across the Persian Gulf and today Iran presses its claws on political developments in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and even the Pakistani hinterlands controlled by the Qaeda-Taliban-Lashkar enterprise. See, "Obama's Lose-Lose Iraq Policy." Now we have not only an emboldened Iran but an increasingly bellicose alliance between Tehran and Pyongyang. And while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the document release as an "attack on the international community," there's a demonstrable clarity to the nature of global threats today following the WikiLeaks disclosures. Even New York Times reporting occasionally concedes the dangers. See, "Iran Fortifies Its Arsenal With the Aid of North Korea."

I have called for regime change in North Korea. We'll hardly see a better time than right now. Japan has pressed the U.S. for a military response and Sen. John McCain argued for lobbying China on toppling Pyongyang. Continued soft-peddling will only bring more conflict on the Korean peninula, and more military and civilian deaths. It's time for American foreign policy to return to the animating vision of the early Bush years. President Bush's Axis of Evil speech identified the threatening storm of rogue regimes in the early post-9/11 period. Toppling Saddam in Iraq was costly, but the world benefits with one less leg of the rogue revisionist triad of terror. It's time to work on making the Axis of Evil two down and one to go.

The Classical Liberal: Israel Bashing Paleocon?

I used to link TCL fairly often for the weekly Rule 5 entries, as recently as a month or two ago. But while cruising around over there a while back I noticed some positive chatter on Ron Paul's ideological positions. Since then I've just left the dude alone. But now it turns out that he's in my comments disgreeing with my ruminations on Julian Assange (I said "I won't think twice if Julian Assange meets the cold blade of an assassin"). Look, I consider Assange an enemy of the state. If he was an American he could be charged with espionage and perhaps sentenced to death. Marc Thiessen's written on this at length (and more today: "Obama administration is weak in the face of WikiLeaks"). John Hawkins has been out front on this for a while: "The CIA Should Kill Julian Assange." And it's like I said, I wouldn't think twice if Assange met an untimely fate. Perhaps no one in history has leaked more classified information. And not only is he putting American lives at risk, he's abetting terrorism. I don't like him and I want him stopped. So what does TCL have to say? Well ...

You're a good guy, at least I think so. Maybe you want to think twice about the "virtue" of advocating murder. There are things in this world much more important than government.

Hmm. I'm a "bad guy" if I reject illegal violations of U.S. sovereignty, not to mention the larger compromise of American national security interests and the security of our allies? Okay, I guess I'm a bad guy then. Or, I'm bad if you're half-baked Paulbot. Yep. Looking over at TCL's right now it's clear the dude's all in for the Texas Congressman, defending him against claims of anti-Semitism, trutherism, or what have you. See, "Ron Paul Sucks!", and "'Israel’s intransigence could cost American lives'." And that's just for starters. The first one's a snarkly piece where TCL links to some lame Paulbot-worshippers, "Why Ron Paul is wrong on every damn thing!", and "Ron Paul, not a Truther, nor a Birther, but perhaps a Round-Earther." And the second one's a classic Israel-bashing screed:

As we speak, America is facing both a constitutional and financial crisis of epic proportions. So tell me, please, how "conservative" is it, really, to render America's best interests subservient to the desires of the Israeli government, while spending trillions of dollars fighting wars without end, with nothing substantial to show for it?

And that's what really bugs me. "Subservient to the desires of the Isreali government"? I really don't like going there, but this is the same territory as Mearsheimer and Walt. I wrote on that recently: "The London Review of Bigotry." Plus, see View From the Right, "The Paleocon anti-Semitic Complex." And NewsReal has lots of stuff, especially "7 Videos That Prove Ron Paul is a Leftist in Libertarian Clothing." And also Jane Jamison: "Ron Paul: Anti-Semite: Case Closed."

I'm sure TCL means well. But he's way over the anti-Semitic side of town, and I can't hang with that. And that's to say nothing of the America- and Israel-bashers at Faux-Conservative Times.

NO RULE 5 FOR YOU!!