Should We Use Airpower to Attack Syria?

I say no, because as noted I don't trust the alternative to Assad.

But Max Boot has an interesting piece up at Commentary, "A Poor Argument Against Syria Intervention":

The argument against this is essentially Realpolitik on steroids: the notion that both Assad and the rebels are bad news and we should just let them fight it out indefinitely, providing only enough aid to fuel the conflict but not enough to allow the rebels to win. That is a deeply amoral argument—it suggests that we should allow thousands more Syrians to be slaughtered every month—and its strategic rationale is, at the very least, questionable. Given the progress Assad is making on the ground, absent more American aid the government could very well win this war—and that in turn would represent a big victory for Iran. Conversely, if Assad were to fall, that would be a big blow for Iran.

Do we have cause to be concerned about what kind of government will take over after Assad’s downfall? Of course. But, as suggested above, our best bet to shape the post-Assad Syria would be to help the moderate rebel factions now. Otherwise the Islamist extremists will be in control should Assad be toppled—and even if he stays in power the extremists might continue to exercise sway over a significant chunk of Syrian territory, as they do today.

Nah.

That was the argument 18 months ago. I think we're going to be helping al Nusra terrorists gain power by intervening.

RELATED: At the Guardian UK, "Syrian war widens Sunni-Shia schism as foreign jihadis join fight for shrines."

And from Barry Rubin, "Brothers in Arms: The Muslim Brotherhood Takes Over the (Sunni) Arab World," and "New Moderates! Syrian Rebels, Iranian President, and the Taliban!"

British Leftists Push to Block Travel Visa for Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer for EDL Rally in Woolwich

The anti-speech thugs are kicking things up in Britain.

At Atlas Shrugs, "Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer to Speak at EDL Rally in Woolwich, Campaigners Call For UK Entry Ban."

Face of Southern Cooking is a Southern Cracker? Paula Deen Admits to Using Racial Slur

At Hollywood Gossip, "Paula Deen Admits Using Racial Slurs, Denies Being Racist":

The 66-year-old Food Network star and restaurant owner was peppered with questions about her racial attitudes and actions in a May 17 deposition.

Lisa Jackson, a former manager of Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House, is suing Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers, who own the restaurant.

Jackson claims that she was sexually harassed by Paula Deen and worked in a hostile environment rife with innuendo and rampant n-word use.

A transcript of the deposition shows Deen being asked if she has used racial slurs.

"Yes, of course," Paula replied, although she added: "It's been a very long time."

Asked to give an example, Deen recalled the time she worked as a bank teller in southwest Georgia in the 1980s and was held at gunpoint by a robber.

The gunman was black, Deen told the attorney, and she thought she used the slur when talking about him. "Probably in telling my husband," she said.

Deen said she may have also used racial slurs when recalling conversations between employees at her restaurants, but couldn't recall any specifics.

"But that's just not a word that we use as time has gone on," Deen said.

That's not "racist." That's normal. People use off-color language all the time, and she says it was a long time ago. Looks like a disgruntled employee shakedown scam to me.

Damn leftists. Sheesh.

Dash Cam Captures Journalist Michael Hastings' Final Ride

This is kinda freaky, a commentary on today's techno/social media ubiquity. And clearly, Hastings' wasn't fit to be driving at 4:25am. Look at that ball of fire at the end there.

Via R.S. McCain, "Michael Hastings ‘Was Hauling Irish Ass’."

PREVIOUSLY: "Remembering Journalist Michael Hastings."

'World War Z' May Rise From the Dead

Looks pretty cool.

At the Los Angeles Times, "'World War Z' could rise from the dead."

Also at the Verge, "'World War Z' review: Brad Pitt’s zombie thriller is a scary summer surprise: Buckle up and get ready for a ride."

Silicon Valley and #NSA Joined at the Hip

At the New York Times, "Web’s Reach Binds N.S.A. and Silicon Valley Leaders":

WASHINGTON — When Max Kelly, the chief security officer for Facebook, left the social media company in 2010, he did not go to Google, Twitter or a similar Silicon Valley concern. Instead the man who was responsible for protecting the personal information of Facebook’s more than one billion users from outside attacks went to work for another giant institution that manages and analyzes large pools of data: the National Security Agency.

Mr. Kelly’s move to the spy agency, which has not previously been reported, underscores the increasingly deep connections between Silicon Valley and the agency and the degree to which they are now in the same business. Both hunt for ways to collect, analyze and exploit large pools of data about millions of Americans.

The only difference is that the N.S.A. does it for intelligence, and Silicon Valley does it to make money.

The disclosure of the spy agency’s program called Prism, which is said to collect the e-mails and other Web activity of foreigners using major Internet companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook, has prompted the companies to deny that the agency has direct access to their computers, even as they acknowledge complying with secret N.S.A. court orders for specific data.

Yet technology experts and former intelligence officials say the convergence between Silicon Valley and the N.S.A. and the rise of data mining — both as an industry and as a crucial intelligence tool — have created a more complex reality.

Silicon Valley has what the spy agency wants: vast amounts of private data and the most sophisticated software available to analyze it. The agency in turn is one of Silicon Valley’s largest customers for what is known as data analytics, one of the valley’s fastest-growing markets. To get their hands on the latest software technology to manipulate and take advantage of large volumes of data, United States intelligence agencies invest in Silicon Valley start-ups, award classified contracts and recruit technology experts like Mr. Kelly.

“We are all in these Big Data business models,” said Ray Wang, a technology analyst and chief executive of Constellation Research, based in San Francisco. “There are a lot of connections now because the data scientists and the folks who are building these systems have a lot of common interests.”

Continue reading.

Remembering James Gandolfini

At the New York Post, "'Sopranos' star James Gandolfini dead of heart attack in Italy at 51."

And, "‘Reserved’: Gandolfini mourned at Holsten's ice-cream parlor where last ‘Sopranos’ scene was shot."

Plus, at US Weekly, "James Gandolfini Dead: Details on His Shocking Death, Final Day."

Plus, at US Weekly, "James Gandolfini Dead: Details on His Shocking Death, Final Day."

And at the Hollywood Reporter, "HBO: James Gandolfini Was a ‘Special Man’ and a ‘Great Talent’."

And, "James Gandolfini Remembered: 10 Definitive Tony Soprano Moments (Video)."

The Data-Collection Debate We Need to Have Is Not About Civil Liberties

A great piece from Reuel Marc Gerecht, at the Weekly Standard, "The Costs and Benefits of the NSA":

According to Glenn Greenwald, the left-wing American columnist of the Guardian newspaper, Snowden first realized how unpleasant the U.S. government could be when he read the cable traffic of CIA case officers attempting to recruit a foreign banker in Geneva by getting the poor man drunk and arrested, to set up an opportunity to bond with him. Note to the reading public and Mr. Greenwald: This makes no sense. CIA operatives don’t want to get their recruits into legal and professional jeopardy; they want to nurture their prospective agents’ careers and self-confidence.

It should be obvious by now that Snowden is a serious flake. But the American government and its contractors—even the CIA and the NSA—are chock full of flakes .  .  . along with responsible, Constitution-loving liberals and conservatives who would be loath to allow the U.S. government to spy on their fellow citizens, let alone their own relatives and friends. It is endlessly amusing how many liberals and libertarians seem to believe that the employees of the CIA, NSA, and other shadowy organizations are hatched in hawkish communities far from the world that liberals and libertarians inhabit. Certainly, good people can do bad things if put into a corrupt system.

But journalists in Washington, who rub shoulders every day with national-security types, surely know that America isn’t that far gone. Civil liberties after 12 years of the global war on terrorism are actually as strongly protected in America as they were in 1999, when Bill Clinton was treating terrorism as crime and his minions were debating the morality of assassinating Osama bin Laden. The same is true in France and Great Britain, liberal democracies that have the finest, but also the most intrusive, counterterrorism forces in the West. Surveillance in these countries is intimate—the French internal-security service, the DST, and British domestic intelligence, MI5, bug and monitor their countrymen in ways that remain unthinkable in the United States. Yet the political elites and the societies of both countries have become much more sensitive to, and protective of, personal freedom as their internal security forces have grown more aggressive.

It’s an odd and, for those attached to Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, disconcerting development: The massive American government, born of the welfare state and war, hasn’t yet gone down the slippery fascist slope. Liberal welfare imperatives may be bankrupting the country, but they have not produced a decline of most (noneconomic) civil liberties. Just the opposite. American liberalism’s focus on individual privacy and choice has, so far, effectively checked the creed’s collectivism. America’s national-security state, which Greenwald believes has already become a leviathan, is, for the most part, rather pathetic.

As much as the conspiratorial left and right would like to believe that big super-secret bureaucracies like the NSA are easily capable of violating our constitutional rights, the truth is surely the other way round: Civil liberties are much more likely to be in danger when smaller organizations—the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the CIA, or the Secret Service—with specific, highly selective targeting requirements, abuse their surveillance authority or, in the case of Langley with its drones, their war-related authority. And it’s doubtful that the national-security institutions since 9/11 have engaged in practices that fundamentally challenge anyone’s constitutional rights—the possible big exceptions would be the FBI’s counterterrorist practices against militant Muslim Americans that have occasionally tiptoed close to entrapment and the bureau’s extensive use of national-security letters that can allow curious minds to wander freely through the personal lives of targeted individuals. If the government sensibly gives the Secret Service the capacity to intercept cellular telephone calls as a means to protect preemptively American VIPs, its officers may well monitor the salacious conversations of Washington celebrities or sexually adventurous co-eds at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Adults are always required to ensure that such practices don’t become anything more than bad-boy behavior. All organizations run amok unless adults are present.

The huge high-tech intelligence bureaucracies, like smaller outfits such as the operations and technology directorates within the CIA, are extremely difficult for senior government officials to manipulate and abuse because of the many overlapping and checking authorities in these institutions. Unlike the IRS, intelligence agencies are not designed to interact with the citizenry, nor do they have or want prosecutorial power. The intelligence agencies grow uneasy, sometimes even too cautious, when foreign threats develop a domestic dimension.

Read it all.

Afghanistan: Obama Surrenders

From Robert Spencer, at FrontPage Magazine:

“The Afghan War is coming to an end,” said Barack Obama on May 23, but it is not ending well. NBC News reported Tuesday that “U.S. and Taliban representatives will meet soon for the first time to begin what are expected to be long and complex negotiations for a peaceful settlement to the war in Afghanistan.” The U.S. entered Afghanistan to topple the Taliban from power and end their influence in the country. In light of that, these talks in themselves constitute an admission of failure. But these talks are far from the first of those.

In an incident emblematic of American policy failure in Afghanistan, American and Afghan officials in Afghanistan’s Farah province were holding an inauguration ceremony last August for new recruits to a village police force. As part of the ceremony, the new policemen were given weapons that they would use for training. As soon as one of the recruits, Mohammad Ismail, received his, he turned it on the American soldiers who were present, murdering two.

Such attacks epitomize just how foolish and wrongheaded our national adventure in Afghanistan has been. In that instance, Farah’s provincial police chief, Agha Noor Kemtoz, explained: “As soon as they gave the weapon to Ismail to begin training, suddenly he took the gun and opened fire toward the U.S. soldiers.” Ismail had just joined the Afghan Local Police force the Sunday before his attack. Nonetheless, according to the Associated Press, “the NATO-led coalition has said such attacks are anomalies stemming from personal disputes.”

In the intervening months, NATO has not grown more honest or forthright about the genuine cause of these green-on-blue attacks, which have continued. They have gone even farther in other attempts at face-saving, claiming that the attackers are not part of the Afghan jihad against NATO forces. According to ABC News, “officials have said most of the attacks are motivated not by support for the Taliban, but for ‘private reasons’ including grievances against local Afghan commanders, ethnic feuds, and depression. Senior U.S. officials have insisted the attacks don’t indicate a high level of Taliban infiltration into the army.”

Continue reading.

Ireland's Clare Daly Slams Childish 'Slobbering' Over President Obama's Two-Day Visit to Northern Ireland

She's a socialist parliamentarian from the Republic of Ireland, and obviously a freak.

I just like that bit about "slobbering" over the Presidential Derp Obama. I can relate to that...

More at the Hill, "Irish parliamentarians spar over 'war criminal' Obama's summit visit."

Serena Williams Steubenville Controversy

Lee Stranahan has it, "Serena Williams: Attacked For Asking Common Sense Questions On Steubenville."

And at ABC News yesterday:

And a tremendous amount of coverage at Google, especially on the apology.

Men's Wearhouse Fires Founder George Zimmer

The Men's Wearhouse was big in Fresno back in the late-1980s, when I started at Fresno State. George Zimmer reminds me of that time of my life especially. It's only been more recently that I've shopped there, and my oldest boy rents his formalwear there as well. Good bargains and good service, overall. It's not exactly clear why Zimmer's out, however.

At the New York Times, "Dumping the Face, and Founder, of Men’s Wearhouse."

It seems that George A. Zimmer is no longer suited for Men’s Wearhouse.

The clothing retailer announced on Wednesday that it had fired Mr. Zimmer, who started the company in 1973, as executive chairman. For three decades, he had starred in its commercials, telling customers, “You’re going to like the way you look. I guarantee it.”

A disagreement between Mr. Zimmer and the board appeared to be the reason for the sudden dismissal, though it was not immediately clear what that disagreement was. Some analysts suggested that the conflict might be over the company’s efforts to appeal to younger customers, which could have been hampered by Mr. Zimmer’s continued presence in ads.

“Over the past several months I have expressed my concerns to the board about the direction the company is currently heading,” Mr. Zimmer said in a statement provided to CNBC. “Instead of fostering the kind of dialogue in the board room that has in part contributed to our success, the board has inappropriately chosen to silence my concerns through termination as an executive officer.”

The company gave no reason for Mr. Zimmer’s dismissal in its statement. A spokesman for the company declined to comment.

Showing just how abrupt the decision was, Mr. Zimmer’s firing was announced the same day as a scheduled shareholders’ meeting, which has been postponed “to renominate the existing slate of directors without Mr. Zimmer,” the company said Wednesday. The board released a statement Wednesday saying it “fully supports C.E.O. Doug Ewert and his management team.”

The company has more than 1,100 stores nationally, under the flagship Men’s Wearhouse brand along with Moores and K&G. The stores primarily sell suits and rent tuxedos.

Financially, it has been performing solidly, with sales increasing 5.1 percent in the quarter ended May 4 to $616.5 million. Sales for 2012 were $2.5 billion, up 4.4 percent, with profits rising to $2.55 a share from $2.30 a share.

Mr. Zimmer, 64, had been easing out of a leadership role at the company recently.

“He had been managing a transition, I thought, very effectively the last two years,” said Richard Jaffe, an analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. In 2011, Men’s Wearhouse promoted Mr. Ewert to succeed Mr. Zimmer as chief executive, and recently hired the designer Joseph Abboud as creative director along with a new chief financial officer. Perhaps Mr. Zimmer “was reluctant to give up the reins,” he said.

Well, London's Daily Mail said something about how Zimmer became eccentric, about how he brought Deepak Chopra to the board in 2004. Yeah, Deepak Chopra, that avatar of men's fashion sense, or something.

See, "Founder of Men's Wearhouse - famous for his slogan 'You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it' - is FIRED abruptly 40 years after setting up the chain."

Obama's 'Running Biggest Terrorist Operation That Exists...'

Wow, Obama's even getting thrashed by the most hardened America-hater, Noam Chomsky:

And Chomsky's also at the Guardian UK, "NSA surveillance is an attack on American citizens, says Noam Chomsky."

'Secure the Border, Period...'

I've been watching baseball all afternoon, the Dodgers at the Yankees, and now the Mariners at the Angels.

So I missed this Michelle Malkin live appearance on Hannity's tonight. She looks great.

And earlier, "The Amnesty Mob vs. America."

The Amnesty Mob vs. America

From Michelle Malkin:

You can try to put “conservative” lipstick on the lawless amnesty mob. In the end, however, it’s still a lawless mob. The big government/big business alliance to protect illegal immigration got a lot of mileage using foolish Republicans Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan as front men. But the true colors of the open-borders grievance-mongers always show through.

After America said no to a pork-filled security-undermining amnesty bill in 2007, the No Illegal Alien Left Behind lobbyists changed their overtly thuggish tactics. They put down their upside-down American flags, stopped wearing their commie Che Guevara T-shirts and cloaked their radical reconquista aspirations in the less divisive rhetoric of “reform” and “opportunity.”

It was all just an act, of course. Inevitably, the mask has slipped. Over the weekend, illegal alien protesters descended on the private residence of Kansas Secretary of State and immigration enforcement lawyer Kris Kobach. As Twitchy.com reported on Saturday, 300 amnesty activists marched into Kobach’s neighborhood and barged up his driveway and right onto his doorstep. It’s how the Alinskyite “community organizers” roll.

Shouting into a bullhorn and waving their fists from his front porch, the property rights-invaders dubbed Kobach “King of Hate” for his work representing border security activists and federal customs enforcement agents who are fighting the systemic sabotage of immigration law. Thankfully, Kobach, his wife and their four young daughters were not home at the time. (See The Right Scoop for interview with Kobach on Hannity.)

But the aggrieved amnesty demanders are not done yet. And Kobach is not the only one in their crosshairs.

After tea party activist turned Kansas state representative Amanda Grosserode condemned the mob action publicly on Facebook, racist insults and threats littered her page. Roberto Medina Ramirez wrote: “I’ll give her something to be disgusted about!” Doris Lynn Crouse Gent chimed in: “OMG! Maybe her drive should be next.” Matt S. Bashaw echoed the call: “Maybe her house should be next.” Facebook user Jude Robinson also ranted on Grosserode’s page: “Since Kobach steals taxpayer money spreading hate around the country, he deserves what he gets.”

Dennis Paul Romero left this message for Grosserode: “(N)azi kkk and she is proud of it.” A user writing as “Paul-says Fckmarkzuck” left death threats under Romero’s comment: “Gotta start killing all the Nazis. Politicans (sic), bankers, and priests. Cops, lawyers, and Judges. ASAP.” The same user added: “Just another b*tch that needs to die off already.” (Note: Many of these comments have now been deleted. Trying to cover their tracks.)

Continue reading.

They're freaks.

Alice Walker, Anti-Semitism, and BDS

Jonathan Tobin has an absolutely essential essay, "Alice Walker’s Undisguised Jew Hatred":

Any movement that treats one nation differently than any other and denies it—as BDS advocates do of Israel—the same right to exist and to self-defense that are not in question elsewhere is advocating prejudice. That’s why BDS, which advocates economic war against Israel and routinely calls for its destruction, is a form of anti-Semitism. But one needn’t resort to such arguments when it comes to Walker.

Alice Walker’s hatred of Jews, Judaism and Israel is so open and so vicious that there is no way even for those who are unsympathetic to Zionism to avoid the conclusion that the author is an anti-Semite. That’s why it is incumbent on those who have embraced her in the past as well as those institutions, like the 92nd Street Y, that have welcomed her as an honored guest and voice of reason to condemn her statements in an unqualified manner and to apologize for their role in promoting her crackpot theories. More to the point, she is an example of exactly why BDS advocates do not deserve to be treated as legitimate voices that deserve a place at the table either in the Jewish community or in public discussions of the Middle East.

And even that's being charitable.

Still, a great essay that should be read in full.

RELATED: "Alicia Keys Urged to Cancel 4th of July Concert in Israel."

James Gandolfini Has Died

This is just breaking:

Actor James Gandolfini, who played Tony Soprano on HBO's "The Sopranos," has died at age 51, HBO has confirmed.
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) June 19, 2013

Man, he checked out early.

I'm 51. Gulp.
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 19, 2013

I'll post some of the obituaries later...

The New York Times has an obit, "James Gandolfini, ‘Sopranos’ Star, Dies."

Also a Memeorandum thread now...

Dana Loesch Speech at Audit Abolish the IRS Rally on Capitol Hill

Man, I've never seen her quite this fired up.

And photos at Instapundit.

And at Town Hall, "Thousands of Tea Partiers Pack Capitol For 'Audit the IRS' Rally."

Obama Barely Clears 4,000 in Attendance at 2013 Berlin Speech

He's beaten down and abused, no longer the glorious redeem of 2008.

At the Weekly Standard, "Berlin Speech: 200,000 for Obama in 2008; Only 6,000 Today."

Six-thousand was the estimated turnout. Folks are reporting around 4,000 now, the washed up hack. See also, the Atlantic, "Berlin Looks a Lot Different to Obama in 2013 Than It Did in 2008." (At Memeorandum.)

'Why I Got My CCW Permit and Why You Should Too'

This is an essay from Mr. Mac at the Survivalist:

Over the last few months I have given it quite a bit of thought. Am I really that concerned about crime…we live in a pretty low-incident area. Was I on some ego trip? Was I trying to prove my masculinity? All of these may have had some minor influence, but, as I probed, I found that there were other, more significant motivations that sprung more from who I am as a man, and reflected certain core values that comprise my person. I’d like to put those down on paper.

1) I am both disturbed and frustrated by much of what I see in this country’s politics these days, and am often left wondering how to properly respond. It occurs to me that, as just one man, I have very little impact on this nation, just one voice out of 280,000 million. Yet, this country means a great deal to me. I lost my father to the Korean Conflict, all my uncles served in WWII, and I have studied and understand what unique and precious rights are afforded the citizens of this country I am privileged to live in.

Additionally, I hold as a strong value the opinion that every man and woman has the God-given right to be responsible for his or her own personal safety, that no one is obligated to be a victim, and that this right is not a privilege bestowed on me by some governmental entity. I also believe that, if a person of good character is willing to do the work necessary and takes the responsibility, then that person has the basic right to carry a defensive weapon. However, it seems that there are those in this country who disagree with me, who fear that I, and others like me, are a danger to society; that this freedom which is so basic to natural law and so thoroughly entrenched in the Constitution, must be taken from us.

These usurpers are even now furiously working to legislate that right out of existence. Mistakenly believing that this issue is “guns”, they feel quite comfortable trampling on my freedom. And so, it is to the anti-gun fascist, those who would deny me my rights as a free man and an American citizen that I am responding. It is in the spirit of those American’s before me who cried out “give me liberty, or give me death,” “damn the torpedoes,” and “let’s roll” that I acted. As a political statement, as an act of patriotism, as my way of hoisting the flag, and my finger, in enraged defiance of those despots who say I can’t, I got my permit to carry a gun; it was my patriotic duty.

That's an amazing essay that taps into the exact feelings I was having early this year when the gun control debate was peaking.

But read it all at the link (via Instapundit).