On the Road to Vegas for Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil

I imentioned it a week or so back. As this post goes live, I'm heading out the I-15 to catch up with my family at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. My oldest boy invited his (sorta) girlfriend along, so it's a big deal. A couple of weekends ago my wife and I went over to talk with (sorta) girlfriend's mom for a couple of hours. We shared stories and (sorta) girlfriend's mom laid down the line. She said she trusted her daughter. It was everybody else she was worried about. We assured her that we don't give our son too much free rein, that he's only allowed to walk across to the New York New York Hotel to ride the roller coaster there. All the hotels are connected by walkways so it's not like you're being accosted by a bunch of drunks or beggars down on the Strip. Anyway, girlfriend's mom loves my son so much permission for her daughter to go with us was a foregone conclusion.

The show's tomorrow night. I'll have regular blogging tonight, once I get set up in Vegas.

PREVIOUSLY: "The Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil." Plus, "'A Day in the Life'," and "Impressions: The Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil."

Are You Reading Theo Spark?

There's been a lot of great blogging over there once again.

See, "Pic Dump..."

Also, "Cartoon Round Up...", and "Bonus Babe..."

BONUS: Have you checked out Great Satan's Girlfriend lately? What are you waiting for?!! "After AFPak."

UK Riots: Young Yobs Back on Streets Despite David Cameron's Pledge

At Telegraph UK (via Theo Spark).

'Both Gingrich and Paul have a nasty demeanor of a sort that, I think, will never make it to the White House...'

That's Althouse on the performance last night of New Gingrich and Ron Paul. And that's funny, because it's those two who I chose to blog on as well. (I've met Gingrich personally, and I've mentioned before, he's a terrible people-person. Ron Paul? I've never met him. But, well, he's just crackpot all around.)

See, "The Iowa Debate."

Previously, "Ron Paul at GOP Debate: 'There Was No Al Qaeda in Iraq'," and "Newt Gingrich at GOP Debate: 'Put Aside the Gotcha Questions'."

Ron Paul at GOP Debate: 'There Was No Al Qaeda in Iraq'

I almost fell on the floor listening to this guy. There used to be some kind of rule for excluding marginal candidates from these debates, and the organizing committees should have invoked it for Ron Paul years ago. What a disgrace:

See Sacremento Bee, "Paul and Santorum clash over US-Iran relationship."

Anyway, a big write up at NYT, "8 From G.O.P. Trade Attacks at Iowa Debate."

'Stop it B!'

Get yo shit together, B!!

That's what I'm talkin' about, mofo!

Craptalker-in-Chief

From Andrew Klavan, at Pajamas Media, "ABSOLUTE CRAP!!!"

This one's good for some extra giggles:

Bill Whittle in Newport Beach!

I have College Day at LBCC in the morning, so a big write up will have to wait. Note for now that the Newport Beach event was intimate and informative. Bill Whittle is a captivating speaker, very scholarly and counterintuitive on a number of points. And host Mike Munzing was welcoming and the guests energized and engaged. Great food too. More later!

Newt Gingrich at GOP Debate: 'Put Aside the Gotcha Questions'

I'm actually watching this right now, as I got home a little after 9:00pm PST. This exchange between Chris Wallace and Newt Gingrich was pretty intense:

More at the Des Moines Register, "Gingrich accuses debate moderators of ‘gotcha’ questions." And also at Los Angeles Times, "Gloves come off in second GOP presidential debate."

I'm watching, so more later ...

Conservative Happy Hour with Bill Whittle

Okay, I'm heading out to the Bill Whittle event, in Newport Beach.

I'm sure he'll have a bang up presentation, given all that's been in the news just this last week. And for questions and answers, I'll be interested to see if he has an emendation to his optimistic take on American exceptionalism, seen here, in part, at his outstanding video presentation: "Bill Whittle's Firewall: 'What We Believe, Part 7: American Exceptionalism."

And tune back in here later tonight for a report and more regular blogging!

Bert and Ernie Not Gay, Will Not Marry

Some FUBAR progressive wankery shot down in flames, first promoted at the radical gay website, New Civil Rights Movement, "Sesame Street's Bert And Ernie Are Gay and a Same-Sex Couple, Right?"

But see ABC News, "Bert and Ernie Do Not Have Sexual Orientation, Says 'Sesame Street'."

And see All Facebook, "Facebookers Fiercely Debate Bert And Ernie Marriage."

RELATED: "Bert and Ernie wed? An idea divorced from reality."

Mitt Romney Heckled in Iowa

This gets pretty heated, especially after 2:00 minutes at the clip:

See Legal Insurrection, "Obama campaign tactics against Romney already surface."

More at London's Daily Mail for the details, "Mitt Romney shouts at heckler as he remains in pole position for president nomination ahead of GOP head-to-head debate."

EXTRA: Robert Stacy McCain's on the ground in Iowa, "Mitt-Mania In Des Moines." Also at Memeorandum.

Prime Minister David Cameron Vows Crackdown on Rioters

Cameron wants to go after street thug anonymity, "Social Media, and Facemasks, Are Targets After British Riots." The full text of the prime minister's speech at BBC, "Riots: David Cameron's Commons statement in full."

Social media's not the problem. And amazingly, some folks are still debating the causes of the rioting, as if sheer hooliganism and evil needed further explanation. More at London's Daily Mail, "Unmask the thugs! Looters will no longer be able to cover up, says PM as he also promises a crackdown on social media AND cash for the rioters' victims."

Obama's Path to Reelection Narrows

Well, thank goodness.

From Ronald Brownstein, at National Journal:

Newly released state-by-state approval numbers for President Obama suggest that in 2012 he could face fewer options for assembling an Electoral College majority and increased pressure to capture racially diverse states. As a result, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida, among others, appear to be evolving into critical battlegrounds on the campaign map.

The polling results, released earlier this week by Gallup, underscore both the stability of each party’s Electoral College base and the shifting roster of swing states that could decide the 2012 contest.

In all, the compilation shows that Obama’s approval rating exceeds his disapproval rating in states with 301 Electoral College votes--well down from his 365 total in 2008 but still enough to win. That total, however, includes North Carolina, where Obama’s approval and disapproval ratings are virtually even, and Georgia, where Republicans remain skeptical that he can seriously compete, despite signals from his reelection campaign that it intends to. If those two are removed from the list, the states in which Obama’s approval number exceeds his disapproval rating provide exactly 270 Electoral College votes, the bare majority needed to win.

Nice.

Image Credit: The People's Cube.

'Descent Into Evil'

I had this at the blog-item finder, and now it's an essay at New York Post, from John Hinderaker:

What makes the present such a frightening time is that a number of nightmarish phenomena that we had thought consigned to the dustbin of history are reappearing. Rioters in the streets. Burning buildings. Plunging markets and the threat of depression. The scent of socialism in the air.

Who, as of, say, 1989, could have imagined that in barely 20 years, what was then known as the Free World could sink so far?

What we are seeing in London and other English cities is an outpouring of evil. To try to explain evil as the result of something else is almost always a mistake.

The U.S. Still Has a Promising Future?

Well, I certainly hope so.

But check Michael O'Hanlon, at Los Angeles Times, "Despite Problems, the U.S. Still Has a Promising Future":

Amid all the talk of gloom and doom in the United States, with the stock market's near-crash and the renewed threat of a double-dip recession, it is worth pausing to remember that the United States remains the greatest country on Earth. It is also the country with the most promising future. I make these assertions not as a matter of national pride, but as an analytical conclusion.

And he makes an excellent argument. The problem --- and I know it's a problem, because I'm just like O'Hanlon on this --- is that his analysis is almost completely structural. That is, O'Hanlon's looking at all this recent turmoil from a comparative power analysis interpretation, which almost systematically excludes internal political determinants. We can extrapolate from past patterns of America's remarkable exceptionalism and global preponderance and expect things to flow along fairly well simply because for all our troubles, no single other nation matches America's bounty or prospects. But the debt downgrade, as Danial Henniger points out today, is the ultimate signal that American hegemony is shrugging. To use Mark Steyn's analogy, we're like a prize fighter who's been hammered, and the opponent's sitting at the opposite stool, counting the seconds until the bell rings to come over for another round of pummeling. That's to say, for example, when Britain fell from preeminent status after WWI, and most definitely at the conclusion of WWII, the mantle of global political and eocnomic leadership passed to a benign power across the Atlantic, the United States. The U.S. had not only resisted the hegemonic role during the 1920s, but after WWII we did just about everything in our power to restore the defeated European nations and Japan to economic vitality and competitiveness. As America declines now --- and I'm using decline now for the first time really in agreement --- there's is no commensurate situation of the leading power passing the baton to a friendly rising power, as we experienced in 1945. China and Russia cooperate where possible but will seek advantage from America's weakening position, as power politics dictates, and that's while at the same time China is paradoxically hemmed in further from America's debt problems (mutual vulnerability forms a trace element of U.S. power internationally). And of course toss into the mix President Obama's hellbent agenda of making the United States the unexceptional nation, and well, let's just hope he's out in one term, November 6th, 2012. And the key factor for the electorate is the massive Democrat debt overhang. We're heading into a double-dip recession, some say. The Fed, for example, promised zero percent interest rates until 2013 because it expects no growth. The only thing good about this is that it almost guarantees that the Democrat ticket will lose next November. Even then, Republicans have been nearly as addicted to spending as the Democrats, with G.W. Bush's Medicare prescription drug expansion being Exhibit A. And the debt overhang will accelerate the collapse of U.S. world leadership unless two things happen: (1) we cut spending, and (2) the economy grows at a sustained pace of growth, say at three percent annual GDP for a decade or two, and then some. I can't see things turning around unless we have a combination of those two things, and without that we'll see a steady erosion of both U.S. global influence and a decline in the U.S. standard of living at home.

So, yes, Michael O'Hanlon makes a good case for continued optimism, but a more thorough analysis must consider the current failures of the American political system, and most importantly, the epic failures of the Democrat Party's expansionist, economic-killing social welfare policies.

More on this later ...

Norway's Anti-Semitism

From Caroline Glick, at Jerusalem Post, "Norway’s Jewish Problem" (via Israel Matzav):

In the wake of Anders Breivik’s massacre of his fellow Norwegians, I was amazed at the speed with which the leftist media throughout the US and Europe used his crime as a means of criminalizing their ideological opponents on the Right. Just hours after Breivik’s identity was reported, leftist media outlets and blogs were filled with attempts to blame Breivik’s crime on conservative public intellectuals whose ideas he cited in a 1,500 page online manifesto.

My revulsion at this bald attempt to use Breivik’s crime to attack freedom of speech propelled me to write my July 29 column, “Breivik and totalitarian democrats.”

While the focus of my column was the Left’s attempt to silence their conservative opponents, I also noted that widespread popular support for Palestinian terrorists in Norway indicates that for many Norwegians, opposition to terrorism is less than comprehensive.

To support this position, I quoted an interview in Maariv with Norway’s Ambassador to Israel Svein Sevje.

Sevje explained that most Norwegians think that the Palestinians’ opposition to the supposed Israeli “occupation” is justified and so their lack of sympathy for Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism was unlikely to change in the wake of Breivik’s attack on Norwegians.

Since my column was a defense of free speech and a general explanation of why terrorism is antithetical to the foundations of liberal democracy – regardless of its ideological motivations – I did not focus my attention on Norwegian society. I did not discuss Norwegian anti- Semitism or anti-Zionism. Indeed, I purposely ignored these issues.

But when on Friday, Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide published an unjustified attack on me on these pages, he forced me to take the time to study the intellectual and political climate of hatred towards Israel and Jews that pervades Norwegian society.

That climate is not a contemporary development.

Rather it has been a mainstay of Norwegian society ...

Continue reading. It's a devastating indictment of Norway.

The Espen Barth Eide commentary is here.

I've said it once or twice, but I refrained from blogging on Norway's Labor Party, and the youth camp activists gunned down by Breivik. The agitprop on display on Utoeya that day was pro-Palestinian and pro-terror. Caroline Glick gets down to the bottom of it, and anti-Jewish tendencies there have a long pedigree, sadly.

Main Street Bank, Kingwood, Texas, to Go Out of Business

What's interesting about this is that the bank chairman, Thomas Depping, cites strangulating regulation as driving him from the market. See Wall Street Journal, "Fed Up: A Texas Bank Is Calling It Quits":

Main Street Bank lends most of its money to small businesses and is earning decent profits. But the Kingwood, Texas, bank is about to get out of the banking business.

In an extreme example of the frustration felt by many bankers as regulators toughen their oversight of the nation's financial institutions, Main Street's chairman, Thomas Depping, is expected to announce Wednesday that the 27-year-old bank will surrender its banking charter and sell its four branches to a nearby bank.
Mr. Depping plans to set up a new lender that will operate beyond the reach of banking regulators—and the deposit-insurance safety net. Backed by the private investment firm of Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, the company won't be able to call itself a bank, but it will be able to do business the way Mr. Depping wants.

"The regulatory environment makes it very difficult to do what we do," says Mr. Depping, who last summer saw his bank hit with an enforcement order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Continue reading.

If you're reading Mark Steyn's After America, this story is yet another eerie example, found in the book, of the kind of stifling anti-American regulatory burdens shutting down innovation and growth in this country. Perhaps Depping will do better in his new venture, but the move to shutter the bank is an real indictment of job-killing government oversight.

Tania Gail Interviewed on 'The Snark Factor'

With Fingers Malloy, "Snark Factor 103 with Tania Gail."

Scroll forward at the audio embed to about 7 minutes, seriously.

Robert Stacy McCain Covers Mitt Romney in Iowa

See: "Mitt Romney Comes to Des Moines, Attracts Massive Media Coverage."

And a Romney campaign ad, "Civility":

RELATED: At New York Times, "With Return to Iowa, Romney Heeds Call of G.O.P. Strategists."