Japan Stuns U.S. in Women's World Cup Final

I watched the final period and caught the Amy Wambach goal. The penalty kick final was something else. Japan's team had some magic going, and their goalie was on fire.

At Los Angeles Times, "Sentimental favorite Japan stuns betting favorite U.S. in Women's World Cup final":

It was the most gut-wrenching, most emotional and most dramatic final in the history of the Women's World Cup.

It produced the most surprising, most gloriously happy and most deserving world champion women's soccer has yet seen.

As far as Sunday nights in Frankfurt go, this one will take some beating. As far as fairy tales go, even Germany's Grimm Brothers could not have penned this story.

Japan, riding the emotions of a domestic tragedy and the overwhelming goodwill of neutral fans worldwide, won the sixth Women's World Cup, defeating the United States, 3-1 on penalty kicks, after a 2-2 tie in extra time.

Twice, the Japanese were on the canvas, or at least the green grass of Frankfurt's sold-out Commerzbank Arena. Twice, they got up off the ground and tied the score.

When it came down to penalty kicks, the Americans strangely lost their nerve while the Japanese held theirs.

The result was that the U.S. failed in its attempt to become the first three-time world champion, while Japan succeeded in becoming Asia's first Women's World Cup winner — barely four months after the nation was devastated by a magnitude 9 earthquake and a deadly tsunami.

RTWT.

RELATED: Steve Sailer, "Diversity Is Strength! — It’s Also, Paradoxically, All-White US Women's Soccer."

Click here for video [YouTube pulled].

British Prime Minister On the Defensive

At LAT:

Reporting from London— After barely a year as Britain's prime minister, David Cameron is facing the gravest crisis of his political career, forced onto the defensive by a spiraling phone-hacking scandal that has sown turmoil in the press, Scotland Yard and the hallowed halls of No. 10 Downing Street.

Cameron came under increasingly heavy fire Monday for appointing a former tabloid editor, Andy Coulson, as his communications director, bringing into his inner circle a man now suspected of conspiring to hack into people's cellphones and of bribing police officers for information. Coulson, who resigned as the government's chief spin doctor in January, was arrested last week.

Normally sure-footed and silver-tongued, the prime minister has struggled to rebut accusations that he displayed alarmingly poor judgment in hiring Coulson over the reservations of other senior politicians and that he cultivated inappropriately close ties with executives working for media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

"He was warned and warned about Andy Coulson," said Jonathan Tonge, a politics professor at the University of Liverpool. "This is Cameron's first crisis for which he is solely accountable."

More at top link.

On Making Love and Having Sex

From David Solway, at Pajamas Media (via Instapundit):

Today there is no doubt that we tend compulsively to think in terms of object, function, or mechanism whenever we consider the incalculably human. Love is something to be “worked at” like a problem in mathematics that must be solved for the sake of its practical application. Friendship is called a “support system.” A Pascalian terror before the cold immensity of the universe is excessive “stress,” as if one were absorbing too much force for the mental “structure” to distribute and resolve successfully. For post-structuralists, a novel or a poem is only the manifestation of an “abstract model.” Wisdom is a kind of “flexible adaptability.” Desire is libidinal “tension” which must be “discharged.” And what was once called “making love,” an expression that however glibly it was employed still retained the implication of a genetic mystery, is today airily dismissed as “having sex,” a phrase which seems to concede in the direction of honesty but really betrays our attitude of therapeutic mechanism — like having an enema, a check-up, or an operation. Sex is an excellent way of running the machine.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Seeks Limits on U.S. Aid to Pakistan, Palestinian Authority

At Astute Bloggers, "GOP LED HOUSE MOVES TO LIMIT AID TO PAKISTAN AND THE 'PALESTINIANS'."

THIS ONCE AGAIN PROVES WHY ELECTIONS MATTER...

'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'

A really well-done video montage, a wakerupper:

Borders to Close All Stores

At Wall Street Journal, "Borders Forced to Liquidate, Close All Stores":

Borders Group Inc. said it would liquidate after the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain failed to receive any offers to save it.

Borders, which employs about 10,700 people, scrapped a bankruptcy-court auction scheduled for Tuesday amid the dearth of bids. It said it would ask a judge Thursday to approve a sale to liquidators led by Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Group.

The company said liquidation of its remaining 399 stores could start as soon as Friday, and it is expected to go out of business for good by the end of September.

RTWT.

Seems weird. For a long time I enjoyed Borders more than Barnes and Noble. But times change.

News of the World vs. WikiLeaks

From Bret Stephens, at Wall Street Journal:

It's probably inevitable that this column will be read in some quarters as shilling for Rupert Murdoch. Not at all: I have nothing but contempt for the hack journalism practiced by some of the Murdoch titles. But my contempt goes double for the self-appointed media paragons who saw little amiss with Mr. Assange and those who made common cause with him, and who now hypocritically talk about decency and standards. Their day of reckoning is yet to come.

Rupert Murdoch Tuesday Testimony Before British Parliament

A big report at Wall Street Journal, "Showdown Time Comes for Murdoch: Reputations at Stake as News Corp. CEO Testifies Before U.K. Panel on Tabloid-Hacking Scandal."

Tuesday's scheduled appearance by Rupert Murdoch before a panel of U.K. lawmakers was prompted by a phone-hacking scandal dogging News Corp. But it is the culmination of a 40-year love-hate power struggle between the News Corp. chief and Britain's public and politicians.

At stake is both the reputation of a global empire—which has 51,000 employees and annual revenue of $32 billion—and the level of support that the Murdoch family, particularly Rupert and his son James, will have among investors.

RELATED: At Telegraph UK, "Sean Hoare, the News of the World whistleblower, found dead."

Herman Cain Stands Up for Israel

At LAT, "Herman Cain to Iran: 'If you mess with Israel you're messing with the USA'."

And get your Herman Cain fix at The Other McCain.

Gay Men's Penis Sizes

Here's the Traditional Values Coalition petition against federal funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Some grant money goes to gay penis size research, apparently. See Daily Caller, "Feds pay for study of gay men’s penis sizes."

Actually, there's been some serious research on this, starting back in the 1930s: "The Relation Between Sexual Orientation and Penile Size." One suggestion is that gay men were more likely to lie about length and girth, and hence the finding of greater penis size among gay men. Weird, I know. The problem is that NIH is still funding this type of research, for example, "The Association Between Penis Size and Sexual Health Among Men Who Have Sex with Men." The abstract's at the link, and you have to admit it's pretty fascinating:

Men with below average penises were significantly more likely to identify as “bottoms” (anal receptive) and men with above average penises were significantly more likely to identify as “tops” (anal insertive). Finally, men with below average penises fared significantly worse than other men on three measures of psychosocial adjustment. Though most men felt their penis size was average, many fell outside this “norm.” The disproportionate number of viral skin-to-skin STIs (HSV-2 and HPV) suggest size may play a role in condom slippage/breakage. Further, size played a significant role in sexual positioning and psychosocial adjustment. These data highlight the need to better understand the real individual-level consequences of living in a penis-centered society.

Well, that's scientific language for who's on top, etc. And this bit about the "penis-centered society." That sounds more from radical gender studies than queer theories. But who knows? I had no idea these were academic specializations while I was in grad school.

See also Fox News, "NIH-Backed Study Examined Effects of Penis Size in Gay Community."

RELATED: At Jawa Report, "Bringing New Meaning To 'Stimulus' Dollars."

LulzSec Targets Murdoch-Owned Papers

At New York Daily News, "Turnabout: Internet hackers attack Rupert Murdoch, wreak havoc with The Sun's website." And New York Times, "Lulz Security Says It Hacked News Corporation Sites."

This is pretty nasty, but it's hard to feel bad for News International. Check The Real Sabu on Twitter.

And at Telegraph UK, "The Sun's website 'hacked by LulzSec'":

On Twitter, LulzSec also claimed to have hacked into News International email accounts and began posting what appeared to be passwords to individual email addresses as well as mobile numbers for editorial staff.

There were some indications that the information accessed may have been several years old.

One tweet mentioned a Sun email address for Rebekah Wade - the unmarried name of Rebekah Brooks, News International's chief executive.

Mrs Brooks has used her married name since 2009 and she left the The Sun to become a News International executive the same year.

It also posted a mobile number for Pete Picton, a former Sun online editor who left .

Also at TechCrunch, "Updated: The Sun and News International sites hacked, Lulzsec claims responsibility" (via Mediagazer).

'I'm seriously considering staying with Blogger'

That's Ann Althouse, and I've seriously considered leaving Blogger.

Well, so much for role models!!

Danny Ayalon: The Truth About the West Bank

An outstanding clip, via Theo Spark:

Dan Riehl Responds to the 'Slow, Painful Coming Death' of the Conservative Blogosphere

I guess John Hawkins hit a nerve.

Dan Riehl responds, "John Boy Hawkins Gots 'dem Cosmic Conservative Blogosphere Blues."

This part echoes some of my thoughts from last night:

... when it comes to what John seems to be lamenting, that lone, sometimes howling voice of the true Indie blogger - as I see myself when writing here at my site and not for Breitbart Media, it will always be something of a haphazard, hard to make a living effort done for love of something, perhaps America or a particular political ideology, for most. It's not a bug it's a feature, as Instapundit might say. But it's damned important that people do it and should be to you for its own sake if you plan on staying with it for any length of time; otherwise, you'll only get discouraged and go away. There's nothing new in that.

Dan's thoughts don't really make me adjust mine. If nobody's reading your blog it's hard to stay motivated. Do we need to consolidate into some kinda big-business model, as John suggests? Probably not. But blogging's gotten way more professionalized. The big media outlets have eaten up a lot of the space on the Internet. Readers will have less incentive to search out the niche blogs when there's so much alternative content sponsored by big guns in the background. It's tricky. But Dan's right that there's nothing new in the online patriots pounding out a platform, and hopefully some of these folks break through for the recognition.

When I was checking the blog rankings last night, The Lonely Conservative came up #57 on Technorati --- and that's really impressive, as Lonely Conservative often mentions the limited time she has for blogging. Congratulations!

Anyway, more later. I'll be checking into the Wordpress switch over I was talking about. A little change can keep the blog fires burning.

James O'Keefe Uncovers Medicaid Fraud

At Daily Caller, "New O’Keefe investigation uncovers Medicaid fraud [VIDEO]."

Also at Hot Air, "O’Keefe’s latest sting target: Medicaid bureaucrats."

And at O'Keefe's website, "Project Veritas Investigates: Medicaid."

Progressive Trolls? Update on W. James Casper, Commissar of State Security, People's Commissariat for Internet Affairs

The Lonely Conservative responds to John Hawkins and American Power: "The Death of Independent Conservative Blogs?"

Last night I mentioned how my comment threads have been destroyed by progressives, and she writes:

I know what he means about the progressive trolls. Sigh.

Yeah. Sigh.

That reminds me of W. James Casper.

I continue to have private communications with readers who indicate they've never seen someone as evil as this. He's a communist storm trooper, and ultimately I see no difference between W. James Casper's hardline program and the totalitarian terrorism of the insurgents at this video.

He's a bad man:

Keep America Safe: 'More Risk'

Via Theo Spark:

End of Blogging?

The question's only slightly rhetorical.

John Hawkins tweeted last night, and he got me thinking:

The right side of the political blogosphere is dying. I don't think anything smaller than say 50k views a day will be relevant in 5 years.

I was, well, "Hmm ... I don't know ..."

I'd just seen Glenn Reynolds post on this the other day, and he linked to Technology Review, "Google+ Marks the End of Blogging as a Means of Personal Expression." I'd read that earlier, so I Googled, and came up with Felix Salmon's, "Is blogging dead?" There's an interview with The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal, and both Salmon and Madrigal stress the same point: Independent, single-author blogs are a dying breed:

... old-fashioned single-person blogs are largely a thing of the past, with the exception of enthusiastic practitioners in the fields they write about, be it banking or science or anything else. And those people normally blog independently, rather than as part of an old- or new-media company.

I've been blogging for 5 and a half years. I'm averaging probably 2,500 visitors a day, the majority of those through search. I don't have a large commentariat, for various reasons, not the least of which is that progressives trolls ruined the threads. But I keep plugging away because I enjoy it for me. I get my news and entertainment from blogging, and I have enough of a core readership to get feedback and encouragement to keep it up. Besides, I don't trust the MSM most of the time, so I feel an obligation to keep going, for the public good, however marginal my contribution might be.

In any case, I checked my blog ranking at Technorati. I'm still in the top 100 of political blogs, which surprised me. At one point American Power was ranked #40 at Technorati, and for a while I was in the top 50 at Wikio (I'm #94 now). Doug Ross recently ranked my blog #100 in the conservative blogosphere.

Blog rankings generally reflect the volume of incoming links, i.e., how many other blogs are linking to you. But it seems as though it's gotten more difficult to stay ranked, although the traffic has improved over the years, through search and through greater opportunities for networking and marketing. That said, change is in the air. I'm thinking about a Wordpress switch-over soon, transforming American Power into a more sleek, professional blog. I'm also thinking of soliciting a team of bloggers, people who share my ideological goals and a desire to expand the blog into a multi-media portal and neoconservative repository.

Anyway, I tweeted John Hawkins back and he said he was going to work up a post based on that earlier tweet. And he did: "The Slow, Painful Coming Death Of The Independent, Conservative Blogosphere." There's a lot of wisdom there, for example:

The market has ... become much more professionalized. When I got started, back in 2001, a lone blogger who did 3-4 posts a day could build an audience. Unless your name is Ann Coulter, you probably couldn’t make that strategy work today.

Instead, most successful blogs today have large staffs, budgets, and usually, the capacity to shoot traffic back and forth with other gigantic websites. Look at Redstate, which is tied into Human Events, Hot Air which connected with Townhall, Instapundit, which [is] a part of Pajamas Media, Newsbusters which is a subsidiary of the Media Research Center and other monster entities like National Review and all of its blogs, Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, and the Breitbart media empire. An independent blogger competing with them is like a mom & pop store going toe-to-toe with Wal-Mart. Some do better than others, but over the long haul, the only question is whether you can survive on the slivers of audience they leave behind. This plays into #5.

Go read the rest.

John's got a couple of suggestions, and I'm going to be working on integrating those into my blogging soon.

Stay tuned.

Israel Leading the Way in In Vitro Fertilization

At New York Times, "Where Families Are Prized, Help Is Free":

TEL AVIV, Israel — Jewish and Arab, straight and gay, secular and religious, the patients who come to Assuta Hospital in Tel Aviv every day are united by a single hope: that medical science will bring them a baby.

Israel is the world capital of in vitro fertilization and the hospital, which performs about 7,000 of the procedures each year, is one of the busiest fertilization clinics in the world.

Unlike countries where couples can go broke trying to conceive with the assistance of costly medical technology, Israel provides free, unlimited IVF procedures for up to two “take-home babies” until a woman is 45. The policy has made Israelis the highest per capita users of the procedure in the world.

“It’s amazing when you think about it,” marveled Keren, 35, who asked to be identified only by her first name. She was seated in a waiting room at Assuta’s in vitro fertilization clinic, a beige canister of her husband’s frozen sperm at her feet. The sperm had been delivered from another hospital where she had her first IVF attempt three years ago, resulting in the birth of her daughter.

“I want at least three kids, and if we had to pay so much money I’m not sure we would be able to do this,” she said.

RTWT.

I love how non-discriminatory the program is. Definitely goes against the "evil" Israel meme. Shoot, progressives ought to be loving a policy like this. Sheesh.

Hugo Chavez Will Go to Cuba For Chemotherapy

At Fausta's, "Chavez going to Cuba, not Brazil, for chemo VIDEO":