VIDEO: Terrorist Attack in Oslo, Norway

A report at New York Times, "Big Blasts at Government Buildings in Oslo; 1 Dead."

And Michelle has a big report, "Terror blast in Oslo – “massive vehicle bomb;” Update: Norway had taken action against jihadi cleric who threatened to kill politicians."

Added: At The Other McCain, "BREAKING: Explosions Blast Government Buildings in Norway; Terrorism Suspected UPDATE: Video Shows Damage in Oslo UPDATE: Two Explosions, ABC Says."

Also video at BBC, "Oslo: Bomb blast near Norway prime minister's office."

9:35am PST: A Memeorandum thread is here.

11:00am PST: At Pajamas Media, "First hints of Islamic connection in Oslo attack." And at Outside the Beltway, "Oslo Bomb Blast and Shooting Spree: Al Qaeda Suspected."

11:30am PST: Another video:

And at Astute Bloggers, "OSLO JIHADTERROR? UPDATE: 7 DEAD; BLAST FOLLOWED BY SHOOTING ATTACK NORTH OF OSLO."

Courtney Messerschmidt Gets Results!

I'm proud to announce that my neoconservative protégée continues her rocket launch into foreign policy prominence.

Carl Prine interviews Courtney, a.k.a. GSGF, at Line of Departure, "A Woman for All Reasons."

And the interview's starting to go viral, at Daily Dish, "FoReIgN PoLicY thEOry."

Yosemite Waterfall Deaths

The Los Angeles Times recently ran a piece on the surging Central Valley rivers, "Central Valley rivers are flowing stronger, faster, more fatally."

I used to live up in Fresno, so a lot of the names and places are familiar. And now there's dramatic news, of three presumed dead at Yosemite, after hikers ignored warnings.

See Los Angeles Times, "Witness tells of horror as 3 swept over Vernal Fall in Yosemite":

The three were members of a group of 12 from a Central Valley church that had hiked to the top of the waterfall, said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman.

Ignoring posted signs and repeated warnings, they had climbed over the metal-bar barricade to get in the Merced River about 25 feet from the edge of the falls.

As Gediman recounted what happened, it was a chain reaction. First one person was swept away, then a second one tried to rescue that person and then a third tried to save the other two. All three were swept over the waterfall.

They were identified as Ramina Badal, 21, of Manteca; Homiz David, 22, of Modesto; and Ninos Yacoub, 27, of Turlock.

Witnesses immediately called rangers, and search-and-rescue teams canvassed the waters downstream Tuesday. They were back out at first light Wednesday to continue the search, but by late morning park officials said they believed the three were dead.

Also, "Search for 3 people missing in Yosemite is hampered by raging river."

Plus, at Christian Science Monitor, "Yosemite waterfall accident a cautionary tale for Yosemite visitors."

Republicans Have a Shot at Winning the Youth Vote

According to Marget Hoover, at Wall Street Journal, "How the GOP Can Win Young Voters":

As the Republican field jockeys for position in the 2012 presidential primaries, it is no surprise to hear the candidates trying to bolster their authority by invoking the name of Ronald Reagan. Yet one critical demographic group will not automatically respond to Reagan's name: Young voters of the millennial generation, so named because they are the first to come of age in the new millennium.

The oldest members of this generation were just 8 years old when Reagan left office, so Republican candidates can't assume that invoking his name will win them over. But the eventual Republican nominee should strive to emulate the Gipper by finding a way to connect conservatism to this rising generation of voters.

Reagan brought an entire generation to the Republican Party in 1980, and in 1984 he won the youth vote by 20%. The GOP needs this kind of revolution again if it hopes to recapture the White House and create a sustained majority.

RTWT.

I think she makes a good case. And youth recruitment should be toward conservative values more generally, which are under assault by the armies of progressive pop culture nihilism.

And Hoover, who is the great-granddaugher of former President Herbert Hoover, has a new book out, which makes the case for capturing young people for the right: American Individualism: How a New Generation of Conservatives Can Save the Republican Party.

Congressman Allen West: No Apology for Little Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Video via Nice Deb:

And see Miami Herald, "Wasserman Schultz and Allen West's feud is political and personal.

RELATED: At Houston Chronicle, "Black Activists Slam Rep. Wasserman Schultz’s Targeted Attack on Black Colleague."

Bikini Beach Party Roundup

Well, time for a little Friday bikini blogging, honoring Rule 5.

Bob Belvedere will get your motors revving: "A Little Hump Day Rule 5: Marianne Gravatte."

Don't miss Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart - Lisa Marie Scott."

More, at American Perspective, Maggie's Notebook and Zilla of the Resistance.

Plus: Astute Bloggers, Blazing Cat Fur, Bob Belvedere, CSPT, Dan Collins, Doug Ross, Gator Doug, Irish Cicero, Left Coast Rebel, Mind-Numbed Robot, Legal Insurrection, Lonely Conservative, PA Pundits International, PACNW Righty, Pirate's Cove, Proof Positive, Saberpoint, Snooper, WyBlog, The Western Experience, and Zion's Trumpet.

And my friends Marathon Pundit and Marooned in Marin.

And check out Eye of Polyphemus.

And some unrelated political linkage, for Joy at Conservative Commune, "Contessa Brewer Beclowns Herself."

Drop your links in the comments!

Alabama Still Collecting Tax for Confederate Veterans

And not one of them is left alive.

Via Thomas Ricks, "Alabama still collecting taxes to support Confederate pensioners."

And this is evidence that conservatives like taxes? See AP Newswire:

Despite fire-and-brimstone opposition to taxes among many in a state that still has "Heart of Dixie" on its license plates, officials never stopped collecting a property tax that once funded the Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home, which closed 72 years ago. The tax now pays for Confederate Memorial Park, which sits on the same 102-acre tract where elderly veterans used to stroll.

The tax once brought in millions for Confederate pensions, but lawmakers sliced up the levy and sent money elsewhere as the men and their wives died. No one has seriously challenged the continued use of the money for a memorial to the "Lost Cause," in part because few realize it exists; one long-serving black legislator who thought the tax had been done away with said he wants to eliminate state funding for the park.

Seems to me that if a memorial park is important and valued, people will agree to be taxed to pay for it. And this is another example of the power of government to tilt toward corruption and malfeasance. A memorial park is worth it, but not at the expense of deceit. See the Gadsden Times, "Time to end this tax":

We’re happy to see the park flourishing, and expect it to get a lot of business during the ongoing sesquicentennial celebration of the Civil War.

However, we question the fairness of this particular facility being subsidized to this level by the state — through a tax intended to pay for something that long ago ceased to exist — at a time when other historic tourist attractions in Alabama that receive money from the state’s General Fund are suffering because of budget cuts.

When those cuts were being formulated, Confederate history groups and others made it known they wanted the Mountain Creek park’s earmarked funding left alone, and it was. Support for the park is strong, so it’s likely to survive a vow by Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, to cut off its state money.

We don’t have an issue with the park getting state money, but it ought to come from the same pot similar attractions draw from.

Gay Barbarians

Turns out they've embraced the barbarian identity. Hey, if the shoe fits.

At Columbus Go Home, "Horde of Gay Barbarians Demand to be Disciplined at the Bachmanns’ “Pray Away the Gay” Clinic." (At Memeorandum.) Glitter today, high-grade ammonium nitrate fertilizer tomorrow.

Flying Legends 2011 Airshow

Video via Theo Spark:

Glenn Reynolds Talks with Megan McArdle

If you read Instapundit you no doubt ask yourself how he does it. The quantity and quality of content over there is astounding, which is of course why's he's so good:

This discussion's from a week or so ago, but amazingly timely, considering the talk just yesterday and today of a potential U.S. default. See Fresno Bee, "Clock ticks toward default as debt talks yield little progress," and at WSJ, "Only Certainty in Impact of U.S. Default Is More Uncertainty."

And at Los Angeles Times, "Democrats erupt over latest plan on debt ceiling."

RELATED: At New York Times, "Debt Ceiling Uncertainty Puts States at Risk."

New Ad Campaign from Concerned Women for America

"Spenditol," a new miracle drug to help you spend it through the Obama Depression (via Midnight Blue).

Also at Daily Caller.

And from Penny Young Nance, President and CEO of Concerned Women for America, "Washington, It's Time to Put On Your Big Boy Pants."

Women, who head up a majority of the household budgets in this country, sit down every week with a calculator and their checkbooks and make really hard decisions. There are sleepless nights and stress associated with these decisions, but they put on their big girl pants and make them just the same.

This is why Americans are so angry with our national leaders. It's not really that complicated. There is lots of talk about T-bills and bond ratings. Yes, we know the global financial markets and Federal Reserve policy are complicated, but the basic principle is not: We as a nation must live within our means. Forgive me if that sounds over-simplified or antiquated.

But again, the average household understands the consequences of not paying debt and spending money you don't have -- you get a bad credit rating and then you can't buy even the things you do need. They know the answer is not to keep spending or even cut back slightly.

Unfortunately, the president has not gotten the memo. He doggedly refuses to seriously agree to spending cuts.

CNS News reported in late 2010 that "in the first 19 months of the Obama administration, the federal debt held by the public increased by $2.5260 trillion, which is more than the cumulative total of the national debt held by the public that was amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan."
That's a lot of money for one president to burden the public. Now he's trying to borrow more money and force our nation to go further into debt by advocating a debt ceiling increase without serious cuts in our spending.

That's why it’s important that the House passed the Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution (BBA). It is time for the nation to force accountability on our leaders and it is why the Senate needs to pass it as well.

Protest Tours for the Anti-Semitic Left

This essay's making the roudns, from Daniel Greenfield: "Outraged Protest Tours - The Tourism Package for Leftists Who Hate Israel."

Via Blazing Cat Fur.

Moral Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union

The cover story, by Leon Aron, at the June/July Foreign Policy, "Everything You Think You Know About the Collapse of the Soviet Union Is Wrong."

I think that title is over-promising, actually. The key explanatory innovation is the role of moral ideas in overthrowing the old order. Aron writes, for example:

LIKE VIRTUALLY ALL modern revolutions, the latest Russian one was started by a hesitant liberalization "from above" -- and its rationale extended well beyond the necessity to correct the economy or make the international environment more benign. The core of Gorbachev's enterprise was undeniably idealistic: He wanted to build a more moral Soviet Union.

For though economic betterment was their banner, there is little doubt that Gorbachev and his supporters first set out to right moral, rather than economic, wrongs. Most of what they said publicly in the early days of perestroika now seems no more than an expression of their anguish over the spiritual decline and corrosive effects of the Stalinist past. It was the beginning of a desperate search for answers to the big questions with which every great revolution starts: What is a good, dignified life? What constitutes a just social and economic order? What is a decent and legitimate state? What should such a state's relationship with civil society be?

"A new moral atmosphere is taking shape in the country," Gorbachev told the Central Committee at the January 1987 meeting where he declared glasnost -- openness -- and democratization to be the foundation of his perestroika, or restructuring, of Soviet society. "A reappraisal of values and their creative rethinking is under way." Later, recalling his feeling that "we couldn't go on like that any longer, and we had to change life radically, break away from the past malpractices," he called it his "moral position."

At least from an ideational perspective, the argument is familiar. I'm reminded of the edited volume from Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen, International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, published in 1995. Ideas are contrasted with material interests as a mobilizing factor in historical change. So Leon's argument builds on themes that have been common in international relations literature for some time. Aron's book on this is forthcoming, and looks interesting: Roads to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991.

Gang of Six

At WSJ, "The Gang of Six Play: A conceptual breakthrough that has too few details."

Grand bipartisan budget deals are one of the great come-ons of Washington politics. They rarely work out, and when they do they usually benefit only the political class. The latest offer from the so-called Gang of Six Senators might be an exception, if—and this is a big if—its inviting generalities can be matched by useful details.

The budget outline—that's all it is so far—promises some $3.7 trillion in deficit reduction that includes rewriting the tax code, reforming entitlements, stabilizing the national debt, freezing domestic spending and rewriting federal budget rules—all in a handy seven pages of talking points. Senate committee chairmen would have wide latitude to write the new laws as they see fit. Anyone up for Max Baucus rewriting the tax code?

***
That said, the outline from the three Republicans (including Oklahoma conservative Tom Coburn) and three Democrats is different from most other such offers because it combines spending cuts with reform that would lower tax rates. Most Beltway budget deals combine immediate tax increases with the promise of future spending cuts that somehow never occur. They enhance Washington's claim on the nation's private resources. This deal has promise because it would reduce that claim.

Continue reading.

Also at NYT, "How ‘Gang of Six’ Revived Idea of Grand Debt Deal." And, "Bipartisan Plan for Budget Deal Buoys President."

And then, from James Capretta, at National Review, "The Gang of Six Disaster: The Worst Plan So Far,"In short, the Gang of Six has essentially offered a plan in which Republicans would hand over control of the budget process to Democratic senators and hope for the best. Enough said." And from Keith Hennessey, "Why I oppose the Gang of Six plan." (via Memeorandum).

The Skateable House

This is cool, at NYT, "Designing a House in Which Every Surface Is Skateable."

Atlantis Landing Ends Space Shuttle Era

At Los Angeles Times.

Also, "A cloudy vision of U.S. spaceflight."

When the orbiter Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, ending the 30-year-old space shuttle program, NASA will have its sights set on the next big exploration mission: sending astronauts to an asteroid in about 15 years.

But the path to that goal remains poorly defined, jeopardized by a bleak budget outlook and a weak political consensus. It has left a deep angst that U.S. leadership in space flight is in rapid decline and the very ability to fly humans off the Earth is at risk.

"I'm very disappointed about where we are today," said Robert L. Crippen, who flew on the first space shuttle mission and went on to senior leadership jobs in both NASA and the aerospace industry. "NASA's future is very fuzzy right now."

NASA has a complicated plan that would include operating the International Space Station, tapping a private launch service to ferry astronauts to orbit, and building a new launch system to send humans on deep space missions, including an asteroid by the mid-2020s.

Engineers and technicians are busy at plants across the nation, building new crew capsules, testing hardware in vibration chambers and preparing to conduct demonstration flights, all part of supporting the future steps that NASA envisions.

Nonetheless, the overall plan has failed to gain widespread support, reflecting serious concerns about the costs, risks and the lack of detail about the most difficult aspects of the exploration mission.

But see, Nicholas de Monchaux, "Spirit of the Spacesuit."

Added: A killer piece at Daley Gator, "Home At Last: Atlantis Makes Historic Final Landing As Nasa’s 30-Year Shuttle Program Comes to An End."

Wizbang's Redesign

Check it out. It's smooth looking and modern.

Most of the blog updates folks are doing use the online magazine format, which honestly I don't love as much as the traditional reverse chronology. There are great blogs, for example, Lonely Conservative and Maggie's Notebook, but I'm still so resistant to change I guess I'd go with more of a Legal Insurrection look. Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to comment registration. As noted at Wizbang:

The Disqus comment system appears to be working out well. There are lots of features available to Disqus users that are documented in their knowledge base. As there are years of comments that have been imported from our old site, regular commenters may be able to merge their profiles and claim old comments. There’s even some tricks like being able the enter the @username of another commenter. While some do not like the fact that commenters must be registered, I think I’ve made it as easy as possible to leverage other identity systems as opposed to having to create a whole new persona. Requiring registered commenters makes for a better community and will allow us to police it more effectively.

This is exciting. I'm hoping to restore some of the previous vitality I had at the comments here. Wordpress is cool with the registration function, so that's a big incentive for change. I'm also talking to potential contributors to build a multi-author roster of right-bloggers.

Stayed tuned.

Krista Stodden Interview at The Other McCain

A Robert Stacy McCain exclusive, "EXCLUSIVE: Hollywood Teen Bride’s Mom Blames Jealousy, ‘Insecurities’ for Criticism of Courtney and Doug Hutchison."

Googlization

A book review, from Evgeny Morozov, at The New Republic, "Don't Be Evil: Google and the Technocratic Conscience":

For cyber-optimists and cyber-pessimists alike, the advent of Google marks off two very distinct periods in Internet history. The optimists remember the age before Google as chaotic, inefficient, and disorganized. Most search engines at the time had poor ethics (some made money by misrepresenting ads as search results) and terrible algorithms (some could not even find their parent companies online). All of that changed when two Stanford graduate students invented an ingenious way to rank Web pages based on how many other pages link to them. Other innovations spurred by Google—especially its novel platform for selling highly targeted ads—have created a new “ecosystem” (the optimists’ favorite buzzword) for producing and disseminating information. Thanks to Google, publishers of all stripes—from novice bloggers in New Delhi to media mandarins in New York—could cash in on their online popularity.

Cyber-pessimists see things quite differently. They wax nostalgic for the early days of the Web when discovery was random, and even fun. They complain that Google has destroyed the joy of serendipitous Web surfing, while its much-celebrated ecosystem is just a toxic wasteland of info-junk. Worse, it’s being constantly polluted by a contingent of “content farms” that produce trivial tidbits of information in order to receive a hefty advertising paycheck from the Googleplex. The skeptics charge that the company treats information as a commodity, trivializing the written word and seeking to turn access to knowledge into a dubious profit-center. Worst of all, Google’s sprawling technology may have created a digital panopticon, making privacy obsolete.

Well, who's right?

If you've read Morozov previously you might have an idea. Either way, continue reading.

Katy Perry's 'Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)'

Well, a change of pace from The Beatles (via GSGF):

It's funny. A Rebecca Black cameo, Corey Feldman and more!