How Long Do You Want to Live?

This is good, from David Ewing Duncan, at the New York Times:

How long do you want to live?

Over the past three years I have posed this query to nearly 30,000 people at the start of talks and lectures on future trends in bioscience, taking an informal poll as a show of hands. To make it easier to tabulate responses I provided four possible answers: 80 years, currently the average life span in the West; 120 years, close to the maximum anyone has lived; 150 years, which would require a biotech breakthrough; and forever, which rejects the idea that life span has to have any limit at all.

I made it clear that participants should not assume that science will come up with dramatic new anti-aging technologies, though people were free to imagine that breakthroughs might occur — or not.

The results: some 60 percent opted for a life span of 80 years. Another 30 percent chose 120 years, and almost 10 percent chose 150 years. Less than 1 percent embraced the idea that people might avoid death altogether.

These percentages have held up as I’ve spoken to people from many walks of life in libraries and bookstores; teenagers in high schools; physicians in medical centers; and investors and entrepreneurs at business conferences. I’ve popped the question at meetings of futurists and techno-optimists and gotten perhaps a doubling of people who want to live to 150 — less than I would have thought for these groups.

Rarely, however, does anyone want to live forever, although abolishing disease and death from biological causes is a fervent hope for a small scattering of would-be immortals.

One hundred would be good for me, but we'll see. I think blogging shortens your life.

Read the whole thing.

Celine Dion in 'V Magazine'

Boy, V Magazine upped the ante this month.

See London's Daily Mail, "Near, far... wherever is my bra? Celine Dion's lingerie doesn't 'go on'... in racy topless photoshoot'."

And at V Magazine, "The Voice":

WITH MORE THAN 200 MILLION ALBUMS SOLD WORLDWIDE, ONE OF THE GREATEST AND MOST GLAMOROUS VOCAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME CONTINUES HER REIGN AS AN INTERNATIONAL ICON WITH A HIGH-FLYING VEGAS REVUE. SEE CELINE DION AS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE.

'The Other McCain' in Tampa Bay

He's down there, with reports: "Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Fear, Loathing and Deficient Hygiene," and "Monday GOP Convention Schedule Postponed Due to Anticipated BlogBash Hangovers and Approaching Hurricane …"

'The A Team'

From Ed Sheeran:

White lips, pale face
Breathing in snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Light's gone, day's end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men

And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries

And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
Cos we're just under the upperhand
And go mad for a couple of grams
And she don't want to go outside tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland
Or sells love to another man
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly
Angels to fly

Ripped gloves, raincoat
Tried to swim and stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Loose change, bank notes
Weary-eyed, dry throat
Call girl, no phone
And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries...

Irina Shayk Shows Off Her Incredible Body in New Photo Shoot for La Clover

Quite lovely, at London's Daily Mail, "In bed with Irina Shayk! Supermodel shows off her incredible body in new underwear photoshoot for La Clover."

Anarchists Plan to Take Down Emergency Medical Services at RNC

According to Brandon Darby in an interview with John Sexton, at Big Government:

Yesterday, I interviewed my co-worker Brandon Darby as he was traveling toward the Republican National Convention in Florida. The interview focused on strategies used by anarchist protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention and how those strategies will be used once again next week by the Occupy movement.

In addition to trying to shut down bridges to prevent delegates from reaching the convention center next week, Brandon has learned that a subgroup of Occupy is looking to shut down EMS communications throughout the city.

Continue reading.

'America Doesn't Need a Birther-in-Chief'

That "birther" joke is working like a charm. And remember, this is all "fake umbrage."

The Democrats are liars and losers.

Via Weasel Zippers:

Newsweek's 1957 Review of 'Atlas Shrugged'

From Cary Schneider and Sue Horton, at the Los Angeles Times, "Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged': What the critics had to say in 1957."

Newsweek

Gigantic, relentless, often fantastic, this book is definitely not one to be swallowed whole. Throughout its 1,168 pages, Miss Rand never cracks a smile. Conversations deteriorate into monologues as one character after another laboriously declaims his set of values. One speech, the core of the book, spreads across 60 closely written pages. Yet once the reader enters this stark, strange world, he will likely stay with it, borne along by its story and its eloquent flow of ideas.

There's a whole bunch of reviews there as well, from people you haven't heard of unless you're a real literary person. Most of them are not very favorable. Even Whittaker Chambers, at National Review, sniffed at it.

BONUS: At American Glob, "Liberals Don’t Get Ayn Rand."

The Architecture of the Republican National Convention

An art review, interestingly, from Christopher Hawthorne, at the Los Angeles Times, "Party Crasher: The GOP Drew Inspiration From Frank Lloyd Wright for Its Stage Design, but An Unintended Message Might Be Sent":

Barack Obama had his Greek columns. Mitt Romney is turning to Frank Lloyd Wright.

When the Republican National Convention begins Monday inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum, a 19,500-seat arena in Tampa, Fla., that's home during hockey season to the NHL's Lightning, the stage will be crowded with large video screens framed in wood. Actually the "wood" will be made of vinyl and various laminates, but it'll read on television as cherry, mahogany and walnut.

The inspiration for the set, said Jim Fenhagen, lead production designer for the convention, is Wright's residential architecture, which often featured long horizontal bands of wood-framed windows.

The Wright references, which Fenhagen said he pulled together after a couple of simple Google searches, are relatively faint. They draw from the architect's most approachable domestic designs — mostly the Prairie Style houses of his early career — rather than his most radical buildings. They're more Oak Park than Fallingwater, more Robie House than Guggenheim Museum.

Still, in the context of a national political convention, where every symbolic choice is sure to be scrutinized, there are more than a few risks in going with Frank Lloyd Wright as your architectural touchstone. And I wonder how many of them the Romney campaign has fully considered.

Continue reading.

Why Unions Fear California's Proposition 32

In one word: accountability.

See this essential essay, from Larry Sand, at the Los Angeles Times, "Prop. 32: What really scares California's big unions":

Michael Hiltzik infers in his column Sunday that Proposition 32 is a big lie -- because it prohibits both corporations and labor unions such as the California Teachers Assn. from extracting involuntary political contributions from the paychecks of workers. Hiltzik argues that its prohibition of corporate deductions is of minor impact, but that union political fund-raising will be crippled.

He is amazingly untroubled by the fact that taking such payroll deductions for political purposes without consent is patently immoral. Why should a worker have some of his forced union dues spent on candidates or causes that he doesn't agree with? As Thomas Jefferson said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”

Oddly, Hiltzik seems concerned only that the CTA and other public employee unions maintain the ability to build massive political war chests so they can pour tens of millions of dollars into the same types of independent spending efforts that so offend him.

Does it trouble Hiltzik that the CTA's inexhaustible tap on more than a quarter of a million teacher paychecks has deluded parents into the false belief that their kids are getting a good education? Does it bother him that California's deteriorating public school system has cheated two generations out of a decent education?

Having been a teacher for more than 28 years, it troubles me. It also troubles Gloria Romero, the California director of Democrats for Educational Reform and the former majority leader in the state Senate. As a former teacher, she endorsed Proposition 32 because it's California's best hope for the implementation of urgently needed reform that would rescue the next generation of its children from bad schools that will cheat them of attaining their full potential....

When lobbyists for corporations or unions hand a check to a public official who is about to vote or take action on their special interest, what happens to the public interest? In April, a Times article on AT&T's enormous lobbying efforts showed that after contributing to every single Sacramento legislator, the company has succeeded in blocking any consumer protection effort that threatens its profits.

Hiltzik has the temerity to defame the reformers who put Proposition 32 on the November ballot, calling it the "fraud to end all frauds." He notes two prior efforts to stop special-interest money corruption of state and local politics both were defeated.

Yes, they were defeated -- by being grossly outspent by union money making the same misrepresentation that Hiltzik has employed in his obtuse column. Hidden beneath a cleverly crafted attack on the credibility of Proposition 32 is Hiltzik's central argument -- that the status quo must be protected from the power of the voters.

Public employee union bosses aren't spending millions of dollars because they're worried that the elected officials negotiating their benefits will become accountable to rich people. They're worried that politicians might become fiscally accountable to the taxpayers.

The CTA bosses aren’t worried that education reform decisions will be made on behalf of corporations. They’re worried about reforms made on behalf of the parents and children of our state.

Accountability must be a very frightening thing to unions. If it wasn't, they’d be a little less worried about allowing their own members to contribute political funds voluntarily.

Unbelievably shameful.

Prop. 32 may be the most important item on the California ballot this November.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ringo's Pictures via Zombie, "SEIU drops mask, goes full commie."

Isaac Cancels First Day of Republican National Convention

Actually, Reince Priebus announced the cancellation, on behalf of the National Committee.

At CNN, "BREAKING: GOP delays start of convention until Tuesday."

A lot's at stake. Here's this from The Hill, "Priebus predicts ‘real’ and ‘visible’ bump for Romney after Tampa":

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus looked ahead to next week’s convention in Tampa, predicting a “visible” boost for Mitt Romney and mocking Vice President Joe Biden’s plans for a counter rally, in an interview airing this weekend.

During the interview with Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, Priebus said he expected Romney to receive a “real” and “visible” boost from the GOP convention.

“I think we are going to get a bump; I think we have a better opportunity for the bump as a party, as a challenging party,” said Priebus.

The party chairman said that as “people get to know Mitt Romney and get to know who he is and the decent man he is and his story of the American Dream and his generosity,” he expected that Republicans would gain across the board.

But Priebus refused to peg a specific number. “I can’t give you a scope, but I can tell you I think it’s going to be real and it’s going to be visible, but I don’t know what it will end up being.”

Both parties get a bump, so these tend to wash out. The bigger implication is the media coverage at stake for the Republicans. Next week is the chance for the Romney campaign to break out and define the stakes for November. It's the time when a lot of Americans start tuning in more carefully to campaign messaging. And the GOP ticket is going to be fresh and exuberant, in contrast to the stale, listless lies of the Obama/Biden scandal machine. That's why Mother Nature needs to shine on Tampa Bay this next week. The party can't afford to miss this opportunity.

More at the New York Times, "With Storm Approaching, Republicans Cancel First Day of Convention." And at Memeorandum.

Tiger Escapes at Germany's Cologne Zoo, Kills Keeper

At the Los Angeles Times, "Tiger escapes, kills keeper in German zoo":

The tiger slipped through a passage between the enclosure and an adjacent storage building, where it fatally attacked the 43-year-old keeper, said police spokesman Stefan Kirchner.

"It appears the gate wasn't properly shut," Kirchner told The Associated Press....

This is the darkest day of my life," the zoo's director, Theo Pagel, was quoted as saying by Cologne newspaper Express.

Neil Armstrong, Earth's First Moonwalker, Dead at 82

At the Air Force Times, "Moonwalker, former Navy pilot Armstrong dies."

And the Los Angeles Times, "Astronaut Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on moon, dies at age 82" (via Memeorandum).

VIDEO HAT TIP: Weasel Zippers.

Nicole Kidman in 'V Magazine'

Now this is a first-class woman.

See, "Truth or Bare":

For a while, the shoot was going ordinarily enough. The woman of the hour primped and posed in pieces from Chanel, Lanvin, Miu Miu, and the like. But then, her figure being just too sick for words, the clothes came flying off. We have now reached the point at which Kidman is lying on the ground in a bra and panties with a red fur coat falling off her, in what is sometimes referred to in fashion circles as the dead girl pose. Most any other actress of her caliber (there aren’t many) would likely say, “You know what? I don’t think so.” Or someone from her camp would swoop in and with a tap on the shoulder inform the stylist and creative team that things were going just a bit too far. But not Kidman. In fact, the only protestations coming from her rep, Leslee Dart, are that 1) the shoot is running over and Nicole could miss her plane, and 2) who on earth is going to help get all this bronze body paint off her?

And at Telegraph UK, "Nicole Kidman strips off for 'V Magazine'.'

Natalie Portman to Campaign for Barack Hussein

I'm surprised, actually. She's a Jewish neocon.

At the Hollywood Reporter, "Natalie Portman to Campaign for Obama in Nevada."

'Republican Women for Obama' Aren't Republican

Well, at least one of the women in this ad isn't Republican, and none of them are conservative. Also really misleading is the argument that if you're for "small government" you should vote for Obama, since he won't deprive you of your right to abort your baby in the 9th month of pregnancy. Family values, you know.

As I was saying yesterday about how stupid these people are, via Hot Air, "Busted: “Republican” woman in Obama ad has been a registered Democrat since 2006."

Watch the ad here.

This lady below, featured in the ad, is Maria-Ciano Adrian-Dillingham. There's perhaps also one other "Republican" imposter. John Hinderaker scoped out Ms. Maria on Facebook. Check out her "likes":

* Democracy For America
* Tar Sands Action
* Amy Goodman
* Barack Obama
* Costoftaxcuts.com
* Being Liberal
* MoveOn.org
* Bernie Sanders Tells You A Secret the GOP Would Rather You Didn’t Know
* Miss Piggy Delivers the Best Takedown of Fox News We’ve Seen All Month
* Think Progress
* The Best Quote From Barack Obama We’ve Seen This Week
* Dow and Monsanto Join Forces to Poison America’s Heartland
* Climate Reality
* Grist.org
* The Amazing Victory Scored With Obama That More People Should Be Talking About
* The Sierra Club
* The Buffett Rule
* Obama For America–Colorado
* UniteWomen.org
* Denver Young Democrats
* Obamacare
* Latinos For Obama
* Michelle Obama
* Veterans For Obama
* I Love It When I Wake Up In the Morning and Obama Is President
* Obama Truth Team
* Democratic Party

Shayzus, she's a freakin' communist!

"Republican Women for Obama." More like "Marxist-Leninist Women Shilling for Obama"!

'Premium Rush'

The previews are wild, and Betsy Sharkey gave it two thumbs up, at the Los Angeles Times, "Review: 'Premium Rush' a thrilling bike ride

Bad New York cop plus a guy on a bicycle make for a tightly wound, radically fresh slice of street action in the film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon.

Obama Campaign's Outrage Over Romney 'Birther' Joke is 'Most Absurd Example of Fake Umbrage in the History of Fake Umbrage'

Charles Krauthammer nails the left's hypocrisy as only Charles Krauthammer can:

RELATED: As promised, here's Adam Serwer tossing out the race card:

Romney is not himself a birther. He was engaging in ironic post-birtherism—showing solidarity with birthers by making a humorous remark that can be plausibly denied as a joke later. This is a necessary device for a Republican politician who wants to rile up the base without seeming like a lunatic, because the belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States is still held by nearly half of self-identified Republicans even after the very public release of the president's birth certificate. Birtherism remains the most frank and widespread evidence of racial animus among some of the president's critics. As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes in The Atlantic this month, the birthers, strapped in their waxen wings, aim for nothing less than the sun: "If Obama is not truly American, then America has still never had a black president."

And interestingly, it's the smell of fear at No More Mister Nice Blog.

Romney took a knife to the progressives with that birther joke. As I said earlier, it was f-king brilliant. Way to shift the outrage immediately. CNN was playing the clip all  day yesterday afternoon. That took up hella lot of airtime. And remember, what's especially good is how Romney's closing the gap on likability, and if he's able to get a zinger in there to rile up the base at the same time, what a bonus. It's a dead heat election at this point. The Dems will try mercilessly to destroy the GOP bounce coming out of Tampa. I mentioned earlier that Tropical Storm Isaac might be an act of God, and maybe so --- it's sucking the wind out of MSM attacks on Republicans on the eve of the convention. Interesting how things work like that. Progressives are such hypocrite hacks. They've been playing "tax return birtherism" for months, but when the shoe's on the other foot it's RAAAAACISM!!

We have a party of idiots to defeat. God, these people are so bad it's unmentionable. Man. At this point it really is about saving the country, sad to say.

Tropical Storm Isaac Unlikely to Cancel Republican National Convention

At LAT, "Isaac looks unlikely to shut down GOP convention."

Barack Obama's Joyless Slog Towards Reelection

Joyless --- and ruthlessly dishonest.

From Toby Harnden, at London's Daily Mail, "Low blows, lower turnouts and low expectations: Four years after he was swept to victory, how Obama's election campaign is a joyless slog" (via Instapundit):

Barack Obama was swept to the White House in 2008 by a wave of idealism and inspirational campaigning in which he encapsulated the mood of the nation with his slogans of ‘Hope’, ‘Change’ and ‘Yes we can’.

Then, his message was a fundamentally positive one. Americans wanted an end to the Bush era but that almost went without saying. Obama pointed to his own vision of the country; a post-partisan, post-racial America in which gridlock in Washington was ended and common-sense centrist solutions were adopted.

What a difference four years makes. Obama is campaigning ferociously for a second term – and he is a candidate who would have probably have been disdained by the Obama of 2008.

Obama is waging a relentlessly negative campaign of changing the subject from the one that, overwhelmingly, most Americans care about – the economy. Every week there is a new issue his campaign seizes on, preferring to talk about something, anything other than jobs and 8.3 per cent unemployment.

While Obama is still drawing sizable crowds, they are nothing like the size of those who flocked to see him in 2008. In Las Vegas, Obama held a rally in a high school before more than 2,000 people but there was space for plenty more.

Continue reading.