John McAfee Spoofs McAfee Antivirus

Trippy.

At Guardian UK, "John McAfee's tips for un-installing McAfee software":

Tech entrepreneur McAfee releases spoof – and NSFW – video and mocks firm which made him rich and famous.

Joe Manchin Hits Back at NRA

A great post at This Ain't Hell..., "Manchin; I come to bury him":

Sorry, Joe, but I won’t vote for you again if you are in the pockets of the northeastern liberals who have destroyed that part of the country with their “beware the boogeymen” legislation. I came to West Virginia to get away from those effete pricks.

More at Memeorandum.

Michelle Malkin Slams 'Source Chilling' Obama White House on Fox & Friends

Michelle continued her D.C. media appearances on Fox News yesterday:

Insperity's 'We Are Ready' TV Commercial

Saw this during yesterday afternoon's Fox News Special Report.

Watch  it here.

More on Yesterday's Federal Reserve Fallout

At WSJ, "Turmoil Exposes Global Risks":

Worries about China and the Federal Reserve's plans rattled global markets for a second day, sending U.S. stocks to their biggest loss this year and hammering bonds and many commodities.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 353.87 points, or 2.34%, to 14758.32, on big volume, marking its first back-to-back decline of 200 points or more since Nov. 1, 2011. Yields on Treasurys hit their highest since August 2011 as bond prices fell.

he turmoil exposed vulnerabilities in the financial markets and the world economy that had been mostly ignored because central banks were willing to ride to the rescue with huge amounts of money.

Investors said Thursday they were buffeted by two distinct forces: worries about the health of China's economy and financial sector, and the prospect that the beginning of the end of the Fed's extraordinary stimulus could reverse the huge rally in assets ranging from "junk" bonds to dividend-paying stocks. Gains in many of those assets had been fueled by ultralow interest rates and expectations that the Fed would continue to pump money into financial markets.

The rout underscored persistent worry about the health of the global economy at a time when the U.S. and Europe are struggling with high unemployment. Adding to the wrenching action is a cash squeeze in China, which is trying to tighten the spigot on credit without causing problems, and a report that financing for cash-strapped Greece could be in danger.

The declines came a day after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the central bank expects to begin to pare its huge bond-buying program later this year and that it could end sometime next year, provided the economy unfolds as the Fed expects. The prospect of the Fed weaning the economy off unusually easy credit at a time when the pace of U.S. economic growth is modest and inflation is below the Fed's target jolted markets around the world.

At the same time, many investors believe the shakeout heralds a shift toward higher interest rates and sustained, healthier U.S. growth, following a long period of superlow rates that helped feed investor funds into higher-yielding investments. Those investments have declined sharply in recent weeks as the market has begun preparing for more-normal rates.

The action showed investors continue to grapple with the impact of an eventual reduction of the Fed's $85 billion in monthly bond purchases. U.S. bonds and stocks have broadly risen this year, with few sizable declines until the past month.

The main thing is that the investors and speculators expect interest rates to go up, and that could destabilize markets in all kinds of housing and mortgage-related sectors.

More at the link.

PREVIOUSLY: "Dow Jones Tanks."

'Maybe' John Boehner Will Lose His Job Over Immigration Reform

Well, there's certainly some hopes for that among tea party conservatives unhappy with establishment Republicans, so we'll see. But listening to Boehner at this clip it appears the Speaker's got a good handle on the politics of immigration reform.

And see Politico, "John Boehner: ‘I get a lot of hatchets’":

Speaker of the House John Boehner is confident he will retain the speakership despite party challenges over immigration.

“I fully expect to be Speaker,” Boehner told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo on Thursday, according to a transcript released before the interview aired on “Closing Bell.”

“As the Speaker I take a lot of hits, I get a lot of hatchets thrown at my back every day. Listen, it’s — it comes with the territory,” Boehner said, responding to a question about recent challenges to his speakership over immigration.

POLITICO reported on Tuesday that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) called for Boehner to be removed from the speakership if he, as Boehner had suggested he might, pushed the immigration bill through the House without support from the majority of his party. Later that day, Boehner assured members of his party that he would not be violating the so-called “Hastert rule” to pass immigration reform.

Christopher Dorner and Tamerlan Tsarnaev on Mayors Against Illegal Guns Victims' List

At New York Daily News, "California Cop Killer Dorner Included on List of Gun Victims Used by Bloomberg Group."

And at BuzzFeed, "Bloomberg Group Named Christopher Dorner, Other Murder Suspects On List Of Gun Violence “Victims”," and Blazing Cat Fur, "Tamerlan Tsarnaev memorialized at Mayors Against Illegal Guns rally."

Plus, at Twitchy, "Blooming outrageous: Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ list of shooting victims includes ten murder suspects."

They're depraved:

Our moral betters w Bloomberg gun-control group put Tamerlan AND Chris Dorner on their gun violence victims list: http://t.co/jKthmK2JP4

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) June 20, 2013

Dow Jones Tanks

At the Wall Street Journal, "Dow Sinks 353.87":

Stocks fell to their biggest-one day slide of the year as anxiety mounted over the potential for the Federal Reserve to pull back its stimulus efforts. Investors also fretted about a slowdown in the Chinese economy.

Worries about the Fed rattled across other markets, with gold dropping and yields on Treasury bonds marching to nearly two-year highs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 353.87 points, or 2.3%, to 14758.32, the biggest percentage drop since November 2012 for the blue chips and the largest point drop since November 2011.

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index lost 40.74 points, or 2.5%, to 1588.19. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 78.57 points, or 2.3%, to 3364.63.

Stocks began their decline at the opening bell, extending losses first kicked off after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated Wednesday that the central bank could start winding down its $85-billion-a-month asset-purchase program later this year.

Traders said the selling Thursday was being led by short-term investors such as hedge funds and accelerated when the S&P 500 broke through the 1600 level. Some pointed to a single account selling a large number of futures contracts during the afternoon as fueling the decline. Others pointed to heavier-than-usual volume in exchange-traded funds as reflecting aggressive trading by hedge funds.

"Every fast-money [investor] wants out, and we're not seeing any [longer-term] funds saying 'we're buying this dip,' " said Matthew Cheslock, a trader with brokerage firm Virtu Financial.

Despite the upbeat view for the economy, the prospect of the Fed curtailing the bond-buying efforts that have helped the Dow and S&P 500 hit records this year has sent jitters through the market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, reached 2.419%, its highest since August 2011.

Home builders were slammed over concerns that rising bond yields would translate into higher financing rates for buyers. PulteGroup, PHM -9.10% D.R. Horton DHI -9.09% and Lennar LEN -7.69% slumped. All 10 of the S&P 500's sectors fell more than 2%, and every Dow industrial traded in the red.

Gold was hit hard, as its appeal as a hedge against inflation and currency weakness faded. Gold slid 6.4%, to settle at $1,285.90 a troy ounce, dipping below $1,300 for the first time since September 2010.

Continue reading.

Also at LAT, "Fed's mixed messages roil markets," and Business Week, "Gold Walloped (Along With Pretty Much Everything Else)."

Some Quick Afternoon Rule 5

At Egotastic!, "Sofia Vergara Cleavetastic Red Carpet Performance Brings Hope to Mankind."

And a video from TMZ, "Kate Upton — SUPER TOPLESS ... On a Horse." And, "Kate Upton’s Bustiest Moments."

More later...

About Those 32 Revealing Photos of New York City in the 1970s

Louise Mensch tweets:

Buzzfeed calls these photos of #NYC in the 70s "stunning". I say thank God for Reagan and the Republicans #tcot http://t.co/bsUzanJ5YZ

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) June 20, 2013

Deaf Three-Year-Old Grayson Clamp Hears for First Time

I love this story.

I tweeted it here, here, and here.

Saw it this morning at CBS News, "Deaf boy with auditory brain stem implant stunned after hearing dad for first time."

UPDATE: At NBC News, "Deaf boy, 3, hears father's voice for the first time":

Grayson was born without cochlear nerves, the “bridge” that carries auditory information from the inner ear to the brain. He’s now the among the first children in the U.S. to receive an auditory brainstem implant in a surgery done at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., led by UNC head and neck surgeon Dr. Craig Buchman.

The device is already being used in adults, but is now being tested in children at UNC as part of an FDA-approved trial. It’s similar to a cochlear implant, but instead of sending electrical stimulation to the cochlea, the electrodes are placed on the brainstem itself. Brain surgery is required to implant the device.

"Our hope is, because we're putting it into a young child, that their brain is plastic enough that they'll be able to take the information and run with it," Buchman told NBCNews.com.

Buchman says Grayson was a great candidate for the implant because other than his hearing, he's a healthy kid. Plus, Buchman adds, "he has great parents who were completely committed to the process -- the entire surgical process, the educational process. We really wanted to provide it to a child who had all the potential to do great."

And so far, Grayson really is doing great, his father says.

“Never one time did he show any fear about that new sensation,” says Clamp. He and his wife, Nicole, adopted Grayson in 2010; the couple also has a biological son, Ethan, who is 2. “It was a lot more excitement. And he’s really curious to begin with.” And he’s discovered a new love: music.

“He claps his hands, he bobs his head. At his daycare, they have a stereo, and he loves to run over and turn it on,” Clamp says.

Grayson is now working with a speech therapist, and has started babbling. He also tries to mimic the mouth movements of people when they’re talking to him. But he still has a "massive amount" of work ahead of him, Buchman cautions. "He needs intensive speech therapy -- in his mind, he has to convert this new signal into something he current knows as, basically, signs," Buchman says.

Teen Feminists Face Hate Campaign of Their Own Imagination

No one denies that women face difficulties in modern life, but achieving full equality isn't one of them.

A few anecdotal examples of idiot boys saying mean things and acting like untrained children is not evidence of a "hate campaign" against women.

But see Jinan Younis, at Guardian UK, "What happened when I started a feminist society at school."

Also, from Jill Filipovic, "Serena Williams, like the rest of us, lives in a woman-hating world."

We live in a political and cultural climate that is hostile to women and still toxic for rape victims. Just listen to Rush Limbaugh.

Disagreeing with women is sexism.

Okay. Got it.

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.