Zoo Model Daisy Watts Target Shooting

Enough Obama riot zombies for the moment.

Here's some Daisy Watts.

Bang bang pic.twitter.com/2RsjFaVV80
— Daisy Watts (@daisywatts) July 10, 2013

More on Twitter.

And at Egotastic!, "Melissa Debling and Daisy Watts Naughty Playtime."

I posted on this lady in May.

Obama Justice Department Organized #TrayvonMartin Race Riots

Pamela has it, "OBAMA'S DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ORGANIZED ANTI-ZIMMERMAN RACE RIOTS."

And at iOWNTHEWORLD, "Holder Inciting Violence/ Zimmerman Trial."

Adam Kokesh Arrested: So-Called Gun Rights Activist is Actually Anarcho-Communist Dirtbag

The media's calling the loser a "gun rights" activist, but Kokesh is about as far left as you can be.

For example, "Media Portrays Communist Front Group ‘Iraq Veterans Against the War’ Occupiers as America Lovin’ G.I. Joes…" And, "Help Wanted: Peace Mom Replacement."

But see the Washington Times, "Activist arrested after loading shotgun in Freedom Plaza." And the Washington Post, "Adam Kokesh charged with possessing hallucinogenic mushrooms."

Also at This Ain't Hell..., "Kokesh’s drug caper." (And check the archives there, which feature years of entries on Kokesh.)

ADDED: At the Other McCain, "Notorious Bush-Era Anti-War Protester Adam Kokesh Busted on Drug Charge."

The Men of Huffington Post

Or, the homosexual stud-muffins of Huffington Post.

They've got a calendar for that.

I just saw Arianna tweeting on this, but here's a glimpse from May:

Meet Gay Voices editor @NoahMichelson & check out the rest of the #menofhuffpost calendar: http://t.co/TeyabEho9s pic.twitter.com/XX6aDQ9KZV
— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) May 29, 2013

The traditional American male is dead. Masculinity is dead. No wonder everyone's so jazzed about Helen Smith's book. I need to get a copy. The homosexualization of America is in full swing.

Forensic Expert Says Evidence Backs George Zimmerman's Story

At the Miami Herald:

SANFORD -- Medical evidence supports George Zimmerman’s claims that he was beaten and on the bottom of a scrum with Trayvon Martin when Zimmerman fatally shot the Miami Gardens teen, a forensic-pathology expert testified Tuesday.

“This is consistent with Mr. Zimmerman’s account that Mr. Martin was over him, leaning forward at the time he was shot,” defense witness Dr. Vincent Di Maio said in Zimmerman’s second-degree murder trial.

Prosecutors accuse Zimmerman, 29, of profiling, pursuing and slaying Trayvon, 17, in a Sanford gated community on Feb 26, 2012. Zimmerman, a former neighborhood-watch coordinator, maintains that he shot the unarmed teen in self-defense after Trayvon punched him to the ground and bashed his head against a sidewalk. A 44-day gap between Trayvon’s killing and Zimmerman’s arrest led to marches and protests throughout Florida and elsewhere in the country.

On Tuesday, Di Maio, a former longtime San Antonio chief medical examiner and author of a textbook called Gunshot Wounds, turned his head toward jurors as he answered lawyers’ questions in a commanding voice.

The doctor’s findings, based on a review of Trayvon’s autopsy report, photographs and other evidence in the case, contradicted several witnesses who testified for the state, which rested its case last week. He also pointed out what he said were forensic flaws in the initial investigation.

Di Maio said he concluded:

•  DNA and other evidence from Trayvon’s hooded sweatshirt may have been compromised because crime-scene technicians improperly stored Trayvon’s wet clothes in plastic bags. Wet evidence should be allowed to dry out and be packaged in paper bags that allow it to “breathe,” Di Maio said.

•  Gunpowder markings on Trayvon’s body and sweatshirt indicated that the muzzle of Zimmerman’s gun was touching the sweatshirt and was two to four inches from Trayvon’s chest when Zimmerman pulled the trigger.

Dr. Shiping Bao, the associate medical examiner who conducted Trayvon’s autopsy, testified for the state last week that the gun could have been anywhere from a half-inch to four feet from Trayvon; prosecutor John Guy said in his opening argument that Zimmerman had pressed his gun into Trayvon’s chest.

“This is basic, you know, 101,” Di Maio said of the gunshot evidence.

Continue reading.

NTSB Investigators Raise Questions About Pilots

At WSJ, "NTSB Chief Says Cockpit Crew 'Required to Maintain a Safe Aircraft'":

Even before investigators have finished questioning the Asiana Airlines cockpit crew whose jet crashed in San Francisco, the National Transportation Safety Board ratcheted up signals that pilot error was the most likely culprit, prompting U.S. pilot-union leaders to issue an unusual public criticism of the board.

After providing new details Tuesday about the final minute of the flight—during which the plane was too low and not centered on the runway—NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman indicated that the jet's senior captain told investigators he believed automated safety systems would maintain the plane's speed and make the approach safe.

"He assumed the auto-throttles were maintaining speed," she said at a briefing.

"Let me be clear," Ms. Hersman added, "the crew is required to maintain a safe aircraft." In an apparent answer to critics who contend the safety board is rushing to judgment, she said "one of the very critical things that needs to be monitored on approach to landing is speed."

Ms. Hersman characterized her remarks as simple statements of fact, not conclusions. "We will not determine probable cause" at this early stage of the investigation, she said.

Still, her comments raised questions about the actions and performance of the three pilots who were in the cockpit of the Boeing BA +0.47% 777 as it crashed Saturday while attempting to land at San Francisco International Airport, hitting a sea wall and slamming onto the runway before bursting into flames. The crash killed two people and injured dozens.

The Air Line Pilots Association said it was "stunned by the amount of operational data" the board has released. Without the proper context and detailed analysis, according to the union, "prematurely releasing" such information "encourages wild speculation."

ALPA, among other things, called on the NTSB to determine if the pilots had adequate training to use onboard navigation aids for a visual approach, on a day when the primary ground-based landing aids for the strip had been turned off due to runway improvements. The union also urged the board to look at whether there were differences between what the pilots saw on their instruments, versus information subsequently downloaded from the plane's flight-data recorder.

Asked about the criticism from pilot groups, Ms. Hersman said the board's release of information has been "consistent" with its practices in past probes.

I doubt the union's going to be pleased no matter what the final investigation reports. Human error here is overwhelming. The situation is just asking for more regulation, and the public's not going to object.

'F--- Bill Clinton!' — Justin Bieber Disses Former President After Pissing in Restaurant Mop Bucket

He's an idiot, via Memeorandum.

Obviously, the Tomahawk Chop Wasn't Going to Go Over Too Well With the Native American Identity Group

For the life of me I can't see how the New York Mets thought this was going to work out. I mean, they couldn't find another day for the event when the Atlanta Braves weren't going to be the visiting team?

See the New York Times, "Mets Alter Event, Upsetting American Indian Group":

It has not been an easy season for the Mets, who are lurching toward the All-Star break with a losing record. Opposition has come in the form of hard-throwing pitchers, mounting injuries and marathon-length games, but the team suddenly finds itself facing heat from an unexpected source: an American Indian organization.

When the Mets approached the American Indian Community House, a New York-based nonprofit organization, in March about helping to organize a Native American Heritage Day, the proposal struck members of the group as a good opportunity to celebrate their involvement in the community. A date was selected — July 25 — and they began to plan pregame festivities that would include traditional dancing and singing outside Citi Field.

But there was a glitch, as far as the Mets were concerned: they were scheduled to host the Atlanta Braves that day. So in the past week, concerned that such activities might be interpreted by the Braves organization as a form of protest over its nickname, the Mets drastically reduced the day’s activities: no singing, no dancing. And now there won’t be any American Indians, either.

On Monday, the A.I.C.H. pulled out of the event, citing frustration with the Mets for thwarting months of planning. The team has removed the event from its online schedule of activities.

“Being a nonprofit in the city, we’re not in the business of making enemies,” said Kevin Tarrant, the deputy director of the A.I.C.H., which describes itself as an organization that aims to “cultivate awareness, understanding and respect” for thousands of American Indians who live in New York City. “This whole thing wasn’t even our idea. But it just feels like we’re being marginalized again within our own community.”

A Mets spokesman said the team “opted to forgo the group sale in this case as our multicultural days and nights are celebratory versus political in nature.”

The Mets host multicultural events throughout the season as a form of community outreach. During the first week of August, for example, the team will stage Irish Heritage Night and Taiwan Day.

Tarrant said his group originally hoped to hold the festivities in early June so that the game would coincide with an area powwow, a traditional American Indian gathering. But with the Mets on a road trip that week, the group suggested July 25 as another option. It was a 12:10 p.m. game, Tarrant said, which meant more children were likely to attend. Also, another powwow was planned for the following weekend in Queens.

That the Mets were scheduled to face the Braves that afternoon was coincidental, Tarrant said, though the group was not so naïve as to ignore the political overtones. Various groups have criticized the Braves for their use of American Indian imagery, in particular the team’s Tomahawk Chop chant.

“It wasn’t like we were planning to protest anything,” Tarrant said. “We just thought it would be great to show natives in a positive light — that we’re human beings, and we’re not from 300 years ago. We’re visible.” He added: “It was a win-win situation. We’d be supporting the Mets, the Braves and Major League Baseball.”

Right. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe the Mets should have just forgotten about multi-culti outreach to the Indian identity goons. You just can't make these people happy.

Here's more from further down at the report, about how the group was going to exploit the game to promote "cultural awareness":

As for the game, the A.I.C.H. began to promote it in early April. In an e-mail to the Indian Country Today Media Network, the group pitched the event as a “great opportunity to educate the public about the stereotypes professional sports teams continue to promote through logos, mascots and fan traditions, such as the ‘tomahawk chop.’ ” But if Mets officials harbored concerns with that type of language over the coming months, they chose not to express them publicly.

After the Indian group pulled out of the event this Tarrant dude blamed it all of hundreds of years of racism. Isn't it always? Sheesh...

Ohio Kidnap Victims Speak Out

At USA Today, "Ohio kidnap victims break silence to say 'thank you'."

And at NBC News, "Cleveland kidnap victims' makeovers send a clear message: We're doing OK."

Anarchist Sabotage in Train Crash at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec?

Could be left-wing terrorism.

At Althouse, "Why did that train explode in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec?," and "'Police say there's evidence Canada train was tampered with'."

And at Blazing Cat Fur, "Megantic mystery: Looking for possible suspects in Quebec disaster? Try anti-oil anarchists."

Anticipating Riots, Broward County Pleads for Calm After #Zimmerman Verdict

At the Conservative Treehouse, "Riot Prevention – Local County Sheriff’s Office’s Prepare Zimmerman Verdict Riot Plans."



PREVIOUSLY: "Leftist Media Agitating for #TrayvonMartin Race Riots," and "Trayon Martin, Rachel Jeantel, and Critical Race Theory."

Added: At NewsBusters, "Russell Simmons: Guilty or Innocent Zimmerman 'Will Ultimately Be Punished' for Martin's Death." And from Michelle Fields, "Facebook pages for “Riot for Trayvon” and “Kill George Zimmerman” pop up."

Alyssa Milano Steps Out in New York to Promote 'The Mistresses'

I watched the show last night, a pretty typical soap opera, but I like her.

At London's Daily Mail, "That's bra-ve! Alyssa Milano, 40, goes without support in tight tangerine dress as she promotes new show Mistresses."

Obama Backers Sign Petition to Repeal the Bill of Rights

The beauty here is that the Bill of Rights can't be repealed --- or at least it can't be repealed without amending the Constitution, technically amending it 10 times, to repeal each one of the first 10 amendments.

But that you could find everyday Americans willing to sign away their most fundamental rights as citizens is utterly astonishing. But that's the way we've become with our state of decrepit civic ignorance in America today.

At the Blaze, "WATCH AND WEEP: HERE’S A VIDEO OF PEOPLE SIGNING A PETITION TO REPEAL THE BILL OF RIGHTS."



Keep in mind, it's not some random fluke that Obama drones would be willing to repeal the Bill of Rights. The left has been working overtime under this administration to strip our most basic rights from the citizenry, from freedom of speech to gun rights to the Fourth Amendment and more. Anything that stands in the way of the left's regressive program of tyranny has got to go.

More from Jeff Goldstein (via Memeorandum).

'The forces that elected Barack Obama president, after all, were the same left-wing radicals whom we saw smashing windows in Seattle in 1999 and marching beneath the banners of Marxist organizations during the anti-Iraq War protests...'

That's Robert Stacy McCain, at his essay discussing one of Rand Paul's former aides, who used to be a neo-confederate, "Fight the Fight You’re Fighting":

Democrats have been so successful at “mainstreaming” left-wing fringe movements that we tend to forget these movements were ever on the fringe. Republicans, meanwhile, are so beholden to notions of bourgeois respectability that they often assist Democrats in denouncing and marginalizing the rightward fringe. This is how we find ourselves with a president whose bestselling memoir was quite probably ghost-written by the unapologetic terrorist Bill Ayers, and who was re-elected by a campaign that smeared the harmless moderate Mitt Romney as a dangerous menace to the common good.

So the Democrats not only never cede an inch of their radical past, but are forever pushing forward with new radicalisms, while Republicans habitually assume the strategic defensive. But should we blame this on the GOP, or blame it on the fringe? Jack Hunter, bless his heart, was trying to speak truth to kookery.

The conservative movement flourished in the wake of the 1964 Goldwater debacle not by purging their own fanatical supporters — some of whom were as kooky as any Paulbot — but by persuading these fanatics to get organized and comport themselves in a manner that could attract mainstream support. The movement that eventually elected Ronald Reagan president and, in doing so, subsequently defeated the Soviet empire, was very pragmatic in its approach to the electoral process and what we might call image management.

Continue reading.

More at Memeorandum.

Comments Closed at Althouse

This happened over the weekend.

Ann writes:

There were some great commenters over the years, some of whom were driven away by vicious commenters. I emphasized free speech until I was forced to retrench and make good faith the test. But that was a deletion policy. I (and Meade) can't spend all our time monitoring comments and deleting. Some truly ugly people stooped to active harassment. This is my place, after all, and I can't host an endless party where there are guests who continually abuse my hospitality. I had to close the door.

She'll reopen the comments. Althouse isn't a blog that can survive without them. But she's been getting too many trolls and it's been taking too much time to deal with them. There's some background that I haven't completely mastered yet, but the sense is that a lot of Instapundit readers are coming over to Althouse and f-king sh*t up.

Here's a post with a long comment thread that relates, "'A somewhat dismissive response'." And Ann's response, "Instapundit says that what he thinks about what he calls my "advice" is "immaterial" but that it's 'probably pretty good advice'..."

That latter post features nearly 300 comments and is time-stamped at 9:26am on the 7th.

Then, checking the search function for "comments," Ann posts a poll on comments at 6:17pm that evening; a flashback to opening comments at the blog in 2005 at 7:07pm; and an invitation to comment by email to Meade at 7:53pm.

Ann's also ruminating and commiserating publicly in updates.

Reading through some of the comments at the various posts, I saw mention of using comment moderation, but Ann indicates that the Blogger "moderate comments" function is not working for her blog. I switched to Disqus some time ago, so I can't comment on how well comment moderation is working on Blogger. I emailed Ann with some information about Disqus commenting, which works well for a lot of Blogger bloggers, especially the useful service of importing old Blogger comments into the Disqus system. It worked for me, although I don't know with Ann's huge archive of comments that it's worth the risk. Ann loves that archive as a history of a community, and once you switch over to Disqus you might have a hard time switching back to Blogger commenting. I don't know, since I haven't felt like switching back, but it's a dilemma.

But something else occurred to me: Clicking on the "post a comment" link at the blog reveals that "Comments on this blog are restricted to team members." I've never used that function, but basically any commenter at the blog has to be a pre-approved team member of the Althouse community. It's not much different that comment registration at a Wordpress blog, and that raises the possibility for Ann and Meade just to create and solicit a pre-approved Althouse blog commenting community. I hesitate to use the example, but folks may remember that Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs was one of the top counter-jihad blogs, and putatively conservative. Charles is positively obsessed with controlling his comments. He pre-approved comments though a sort of random lottery where he'd open the commenting system to new registrants for a short time at unannounced intervals. He'd often get dozens --- if not hundreds --- of new commenters who registered, which he called "hatchlings." It was kind of a big deal back in the day, because folks really wanted to be part of the LGF community. Charles would close the registration window and announce how many new members joined. People would constantly be checking the blog, at the least, to see if they could catch the window opening for new commenters. I never did register, because I didn't care about it that much, and besides, when LGF started posting all the aggressive Darwinism/anti-Christian hatred ... well, the idea of joining the community decidedly lost its appeal. And as for LGF today ... no doubt readers are aware of that tragedy.

But still, it's an interesting example. Say Althouse were to open her comments to new registrants periodically, say on the weekend mornings. This could be done by email requests sent to Ann or Meade by interested readers. They'd have to have a Blogger ID and then could be approved to comment at the blog. If at any time those commenters became abusive they could be banned at a moment's notice.

She's going to need to do something like this. A large plurality responding to her poll said that the blog was basically all about the comments. I actually read Althouse more for the content than the comments, but certainly the comments are a major draw for any reader. I'll never forget the Jessica Valenti "breasts" controversy, at which time I found myself reading comments for hours. That was seven years ago. The blogosphere wouldn't be the same without those periodic Althouse blasts of observation that upend sensibilities and rejigger thinking on some important issue or another. And of course, Ann married one of her commenters --- so c'mon, you're going to tell me that a blog that was featured at the New York Times, in a report on the blogress and her suitor, is going to now be without comments, the very feature that has defined what it is to be an Althouse reader? No way.

In any case, I personally expect commenting to open back over there not too long from now, for the reasons that I've outlined above. Ann and Meade need to find the right way to manage it, because the hatred and vitriol online is extremely "mellow-harshing," as I've written about here many times. But bloggers have their own systems. Some don't allow comments and work more as portals to the Internet. Some bloggers are vanity whores where having comments would be impossible since they'd expose the naked emperor. The opposite of that is Ann's blog, which the New York Times situated as a metaphor for a royal court. That's a pretty good one, as Ann's certainly a benign blog monarch who tolerates much in the realm. But of late the commoners have become so rancid as to completely discombobulate the kingdom (or princess-ipality, be that as it may).

In any case, I'll be checking over at Althouse to see how things go. It's going to work out.

UPDATED: Ann writes to say that opening the comments to "team members" would open the front page to everybody, which is a no-can-do situation. Well, I tried.

Egypt Descends Into Chaos

Today's front-page story at the Wall Street Journal, "Dozens Killed in Clash Between Military, Morsi Supporters; Elections Planned" (via the Other McCain).

'We're conservative Americans. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, Irish it up with a little Stoli, and then grill a rib-eye while you drink it...'

That's from Kurt Schlichter's Townhall column from March, "Have We Lost America? Hell No!"

Somebody tweeted it out on Twitter last night, and it's a keeper:

It’s glorious.

This is no time to be a pessimist. Americans are natural optimists, and we conservatives have reason to be. The initiative and the momentum are with us in the campaign to take this county back from the liberal elites and their spineless lackeys. We’re going to win, and America is going to rise again.

In fact, I almost feel sorry for our opponents.

Almost.

So X's Exene Cervenka Has an Advice Column — Who Knew?

And she had to leave Los Angeles, it turns out, as she now resides in suburban Orange County.

See the O.C. Weekly, "[Exene Says...] Why Are Parents Too Scared to Be Parents?":

The Consequences of Accelerated Modern Life

At Der Spiegel, "Do More, Faster: Acceleration Plagues Modern Society":

Faster! Faster! Even Faster! The phenomenon of acceleration is a defining characteristic of modern life. A new book analyzes how it fuels a constant need for new experiences and a counterintuitive shortage of time.

Steve Ballmer is no Steve Jobs. The CEO of Microsoft is not considered to be much of a philosopher. And yet, for the company's recent developer conference he perceptively wrapped the motto of our time into a pertinent slogan: "Faster! Faster! Faster! Faster!"

Ballmer may have been referring to the development of new products or the creation of ever faster operating systems, but acceleration has also become a universal goal in the modern world. It's more than just a technological phenomenon, argues German sociologist Hartmut Rosa, a professor at the University of Jena. His recently published essay "Beschleunigung und Entfremdung," or "Acceleration and Alienation," posits that acceleration is the core element of modernization and consequently the key concept of our age.

Rosa differentiates between mechanical acceleration, the acceleration of social change and the accelerating pace of daily life. The process of mechanical acceleration began in the 19th century in conjunction with industrialization. In terms of the time it takes to travel across the world, for example, it has effectively shrunk the size of the world to one-sixtieth of its actual size.

Keeping Our Options Open

Today, mechanical acceleration affects the digital sector in particular. But paradoxically, it also goes hand in hand with an acceleration of the pace of life. Even though mechanical acceleration, by shortening the time it takes to complete tasks, was intended to create more available time for the individual, late modern society does not enjoy the luxury of more leisure time, Rosa writes. On the contrary, individuals suffer from a constant time shortage.

The reason for this is our urge "to realize as many options as possible from the infinite palette of possibilities that life presents to us," he says. Living life to the fullest has become the core objective of our time. At the same time, this hunger for new things can never be satisfied: "No matter how fast we become, the proportion of the experiences we have will continuously shrink in the face of those we missed." As a result, more and more people suffer from depression and burnout, according to Rosa.

His definition of social change utilizes a term that originally stems from Marxism: alienation. But Rosa's criticism is not directed against capitalist production conditions (unlike earlier critics of industrial modernity, Rosa's focus is not on labor), but against acceleration as a resulting meta-phenomenon.

Rosa's book shows that this phenomenon deserves at least as much attention as the buzzword "globalization," especially because the continuous acceleration of social change also leads to changes in values, lifestyles and relationships.

Continue reading.

Mos Def Guantánamo Hunger Strike Video

Honestly, I don't care.

Hussein the Incompetent promised to close the facility, so it goes on his head.

See the Guardian UK, "Obama urged to halt Ramadan force-feeding at Guantánamo."