Nyjah Huston Tops Prelims at Street League Series — X Games Los Angeles

At Street League, "STREET LEAGUE AT X GAMES LA: PRELIMS RESULTS."



And at ESPN, "NYJAH HUSTON TOPS STREET LEAGUE PRELIMS."

Obama's Foreign Policy in Shambles

From the inimitable Charles Krauthammer, at this afternoon's Fox News All-Stars.



More at CNN, "U.S. issues global travel alert, to close embassies due to al Qaeda threat," and Pajamas Media, "Dozens of US Embassasies to Close Sunday Due to ‘Credible’ Terror Threat (Update: Worldwide Travel Warning)" (via Memeorandum).

'Can't a guy just go get a haircut without a bunch of femi-queer-Nazis bugging the f*** out of him?'

From my comment at Blazing Cat Fur, "Woman who identifies as queer feminist activist denied haircut at Westdale barbershop."

What Neocon Revival?

Here's a key passage from David Brooks at the New York Time, "The Neocon Revival":

Neocons put values at the center of their governing philosophy, but their social policy was neither morally laissez-faire like the libertarians nor explicitly religious like some social conservatives. Neocons mostly sought policies that would encourage self-discipline. “In almost every area of public concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants for public assistance, would-be lawbreakers, or voters and public officials,” James Q. Wilson wrote.

How would they know if programs induced virtue? Empirically. “Neoconservatives, accordingly, place a lot of stock in applied social science research, especially the sort that evaluates old programs and tests new ones,” Wilson added.

Nobody would call George F. Will a neocon, but, in 1983, he published a superb book called “Statecraft as Soulcraft.” It championed the sort of governing conservatism that was common then and is impermissible now. “It is generally considered obvious that government should not, indeed cannot, legislate morality. But, in fact, it does so, frequently; it should do so more often,” Will wrote.

He was not calling for a theocracy. He was calling for “strong government conservatism,” for a limited but energetic government that could cultivate the best in persons by educating the passions. “American conservatives are caught in the web of their careless antigovernment rhetoric,” he concluded.

Brooks reiterates a key point about neoconservatism: that its essence is a domestic policy movement, despite the rise of the foreign policy Vulcans during the George W. Bush administration.

But what Brooks doesn't do is examine how the so-called neocon support for "strong government" in fact erodes the values of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency that are central to a conservative creed. Also neglected is the notion that some Republicans thought of as neocons, John McCain comes to mind, have become the biggest enablers of dependency-state Democrats in recent years, and have thus tarnished the brand nearly beyond redemption. Indeed, McCain's now saying he'd more likely back Hillary Clinton over Rand Paul in 2016, which raises the question: When will McRINO be switching parties? (See IBD, "Why Does John McCain Keep Running as a Republican?")

The problem for neoconservatism is not to surrender to laissez-faire libertarianism, it's simply to stand up for the very values that it purports to champion. Pushing for a "strong government" conservatism at this point simply empowers Democrat big government. Neocons need to reconnect with the mediating institutions that help families free themselves from government dependency. This doesn't mean becoming a 100 percent small-g conservative. It means standing up for values by reining in out-of-control Democrat-collectivist entitlement statism. Without that, there is no "neocon revival."

RELATED: From Reihan Salam, at National Review, "Searching for Irving Kristol" (via Memeorandum).

Millennial Moochers: A Record 21.6 Million Young Adults Lived at Parents' Home in 2012

The detritus of the Obama economy.

Here's the report at Pew Research, "A Rising Share of Young Adults Live in Their Parents’ Home: A Record 21.6 Million In 2012."

And at the clip, I'm going to credit Christy Setzer with making some decent points, but there's no doubt the current administration's policies are severely hampering the life chances of younger people. It's pretty sad, too, since these are the same people who were hoodwinked by the despicable Hopenchange lies.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Recommended Reading List

I consider myself widely-read, but I only score with "War and Peace" on this list.

At London's Daily Mail, "The 22 books everyone should read… according to F. Scott Fitzgerald: List of novels he dictated to nurse is revealed."

Sister Carrie: Theodore Dreiser
The Life of Jesus: Ernest Renan
A Doll’s House: Henrik Ibsen
Winesburg, Ohio: Sherwood Anderson
The Old Wives’ Tale: Arnold Bennett
The Maltese Falcon: Dashiel Hammett
The Red and the Black: Stendahl
The Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant
An Outline of Abnormal Psychology: edited by Gardner Murphy
The Stories of Anton Chekhov
The Best American Humorous Short Stories
Victory: Joseph Conrad
The Revolt of the Angels: Anatole France
The Plays of Oscar Wilde
Sanctuary: William Faulkner
Within a Budding Grove: Marcel Proust
The Guermantes Way: Marcel Proust
Swann’s Way: Marcel Proust
South Wind: Norman Douglas
The Garden Party: Katherine Mansfield
War and Peace: Leo Tolstoy
John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete Poetical Works

I do have Conrad, Dreiser, Faulkner, and Stendhal on my paperback bookshelf, so perhaps I can get back up to speed on my classical reading?

We'll see...

Timeline of 'Horndog' Simon Cowell's Women

This is pretty good, via the New York Post, "'Baby mama' seeking to tame horndog Simon Cowell, making 'X-Factor' judge keep promise to marry her." (Via WeSmirch.)

#TheyFeelPain: New York Times Attacks 'Theory of Pain-Based Abortion Limits'

The New York Times is obviously still smarting from the pro-aborts' debacle in Texas.

See, "Theory on Pain Is Driving Rules for Abortions":

It challenges four decades of constitutional doctrine and is based on disputed scientific theories.

Yet a push to ban abortion at 20 weeks after conception, on the theory that the fetus can feel pain at that point, has emerged as a potent new tactic of the anti-abortion movement. Advocates saw the potential of such a measure because it taps into public concern about late-stage abortions, appears to alter the rules only incrementally, and claims to be rooted in science.

“Any time we talk about developmental landmarks of the unborn child, anything showing that the unborn child is a member of the human family — that gets the public to take a closer look at abortion,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, the state policy director of the National Right to Life Committee, who is widely seen as the architect of 20-week legislation.

The 20-week ban was first adopted in 2010 in Nebraska, where conservatives aimed to rein in one well-known abortion doctor. A pain-based abortion limit has now been enacted in a dozen states, most recently in Texas, and a bill to impose one nationally passed the Republican-controlled House in June. One recent poll, while affirming public support for legal abortion over all, suggested that a majority of people would draw the line at 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion rights advocates call the pain argument duplicitous and say the laws will be declared unconstitutional, arguing that they are a reflection of Republican gains in state legislatures and not a shift in public opinion. But they have also been forced to mobilize against 20-week bills in state after state, and they credit their opponents with effective marketing.

“These laws are cloaked in the language of two-week increments, rather than banning abortion at conception or other more radical measures,” said Suzanne B. Goldberg, the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University. “They are cutting back on women’s constitutional rights, but less dramatically, so they trigger less alarm across society.”

In the three states where the bans have been legally challenged, the courts blocked them. In the standard laid out by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973 and elaborated on in later decisions, women have a right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, around 24 weeks into pregnancy.

But proponents of 20-week bans hope that one of the cases will be accepted by the Supreme Court. Reading into opinions by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the likely swing voter, they are hoping for a legal upheaval.

With these bills, the anti-abortion movement is tapping into a powerful strand in the complex tangle of public opinion on abortion. Support for legal abortion drops when people are asked about the later stages of pregnancy.

In a Gallup poll last December, 61 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, but 27 percent said it should be legal in the second three months, and 14 percent in the final three.

Since then, other pollsters have started asking about a 20-week limit — evidence that opponents of abortion have injected the proposed cutoff into the public discourse, said Michael Dimock, the director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

By any measure, the practical impact of a 20-week ban is small compared with the potential legal and symbolic effects. In all cases but one, in Arizona, the laws ban abortions at the 20th week after fertilization, which is the 22nd week after the last menstrual period, the most common way of describing pregnancy. The estimate of fetal viability at around 24 weeks is also timed from the last menstrual period, so the actual gap between the two approaches is about two weeks, involving several thousand abortions, at most, out of an estimated 1.2 million performed every year.

Only "several thousand abortions" out of over a million each year in the left's genocide of the unborn.

Regressive leftists are evil baby killers. They're despicable people. Just disgusting.

There's still more at that top link, but again notice how the baby killers are "abortion rights activists" while the protectors of the unborn are "anti-abortion," to make it seem as if that's something shameful.

Killing the unborn is the ultimate shame. That's why I can never ever condone the ideology of the left. The have a romance with death. Leftism is an ideology of death and destruction of human decency. I never support these people. Never.

Bill Whittle's Afterburner: 'Sarah Palin was Right'

Funny, I was just talking about this earlier, "ObamaCare's Just for the Little People."

Elliot Sloan Wins Big Air Gold at X-Games Los Angeles 2013

At LAT, "Elliot Sloan wins X Games gold in skateboard big air":

Elliot Sloan moved from New York City to Vista, Calif., 7 1/2 years ago and has been chasing a dream ever since. On Thursday night at Irwindale Speedway he finally achieved it, winning his first X Games gold medal, in the skateboard big air event.

"This is probably a game changer, to have one of these under my belt," Sloan said. "I'm so relieved right now. It's the last one out here, so to end it like this on a high note, it's definitely something I've been looking forward to all year." The X Games are moving from the Los Angeles area to Austin, Texas, next year.

Sloan used a tail grab 720 (two full rotations) and a tail grab 540 to notch a total score of 90.165, edging 13-year-old Tom Schaar and denying Bob Burnquist a golden sweep of all four X Games skateboard big air events in 2013.

Earlier this year, Sloan, 25, took bronze at X Games Barcelona and silver at both Brazil and Munich, falling to Burnquist each time. Before Sloan's winning run, Burnquist fell hard off the quarterpipe, later saying he broke his nose.

"It's the same stuff I've done all year," Sloan said. "Unfortunately, Bob went down on the one run he usually makes, which is crazy. ... It's awesome, but I would have preferred to beat him at his best."

More at the link.

'Complicit in evil...'

From the comments at the Other McCain, "Vile Lie-Peddler @Karoli Kuns and the Posthumous Vindication of Breitbart":

There is a point where "that incredibly stupid" becomes unbelievable and "complicit in evil" becomes the most obvious explanation.

So many leftists have just gone off the deep end and plunged into pure evil, defending murderers and pedophiles.

And yet they continue to influence so many people who are just to lazy to think on their own and we continue to slide into the abyss with monsters like this leading the way...

Karoli's a vile woman, no doubt. But she's not alone. The left is "complicit in evil" all around. That's what the regressive left is all about.

Flashback: Jake Brown's 45-Foot Slam From X-Games 2007

I remember watching this on television at the time. The dude got up and walked away.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Jake Brown's epic fall is not forgotten":

It has been six years, but fans still ask Jake Brown the same questions: "How did it feel? What was going through your head? How are you still alive?"

It's understandable, but how Brown walked away from a 45-foot free fall really isn't.

It has become the main part of his legacy in the skateboarding big air event — not landing the first ollie 720, winning a gold medal after years of trying or skating on two broken ribs in Barcelona earlier this year.

"I haven't really seen too much of that change. It's still the same six years since I did that," Brown said. "Yeah it's always brought up, but I'm just here to skate and try to help us progress. I just want to leave a positive mark on the sport."

On that day in 2007, the Australian landed the first 720 in big air competition over a 55-foot gap before losing control, his body flailing in mid-air before smacking the wood ramp. His shoes flew 50 feet, his head was under his back due to the whiplash and the Staples Center crowd was eerily silent.

Fellow big air gold medalist Bob Burnquist was at the top of the ramp when he thought he saw his friend for the last time.

"I fell on the ground and started crying because I thought he had died," Burnquist said.

Brown's injuries were a fractured wrist, fractured vertebrae, bruised liver, bruised lung, ruptured spleen and concussion. And yet he still got up and walked off.

Two years later, Brown won the gold medal in that same event, when he realized mental preparation underneath the helmet is almost as important as technical prowess above the board.

"I thought I was good right away, but it took me a couple of years to mentally get back to where I wanted to be," Brown said. "Everything is heightened at that level: the danger, the rush, the reward."

More at the top link.

Hilarious Jimmy Kimmel on Anthony #Weiner 'No Quitter' Campaign Ad

I was ROTFL the other night when this was on.

Lauren Silverman Husband Names Simon Cowell in Divorce Papers

Made for the tabloids.

At the Mirror UK, "Simon Cowell could face DNA test and court appearance over fling with friend's wife that left her pregnant," and "The secrets of Simon Cowell's "love boat" cruises with Lauren Silverman and her husband Andrew."

Also, "Simon Cowell jokes 'I haven’t read the newspapers' as he's questioned about baby."

Obamaphone Blowout!

On Hannity's last night.

"Let Me Finish, Then You’ll Be Educated On Something!"



FLASHBACK: "Free Obama Phones."

ObamaCare's Just for the Little People

The special gall here is that the man's slated to be one of the key enforcers of the brutal ObamaCare regime. And he clearly and honestly confesses that for people with coverage already, moving into a new "environment" is going to be badly inferior to what's available to people of his status already.

When the left thinks they know what's good for America, they make sure to exempt themselves from the ramifications of those "wonderful" changes. This, in a word, is evil.

Via the Lonely Conservative, "Video: IRS Official Wants to Keep His Current Health Plan, Doesn’t Want Switch to OCare."

Lauren Silverman Demands Marriage and Reality Show From Simon Cowell

Well, that's what you get for not wearing a raincoat.

At London's Daily Mail, "Marry me and give me a TV show! Simon Cowell's 'gold digger' pregnant lover 'has demanded he marry her and give her a reality TV show'."

Roger Waters Responds to Charges of Anti-Semitism

At Algemeiner, "Roger Waters Defends Himself Against Charges of Anti-Semitism: ‘I Have Many Very Close Jewish Friends’."

And Twitchy, "Comfortably dumb: Roger Waters says he’s not an anti-Semite; Some of his best friends are Jews."

@jaketapper Ah he used the old line of "Some of my best friends are self-hating Jews."

— UnfrozCavemanZionist (@CygnusA81) August 1, 2013

BACKGROUND: "Roger Waters Concert Exhibits Hateful Anti-Semitic Images and Props."

Mugabe Wins Zimbabwe Election: Opposition Decries 'Huge Farce'

Well, this is no surprise.

At the New York Times, "Challenger to Zimbabwe’s President Says Election Was a ‘Huge Farce’":

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Morgan Tsvangirai, the challenger to Zimbabwe’s longtime president, Robert Mugabe, asserted Thursday that the country’s presidential election had been a “huge farce” and called upon international observers to investigate what he described as widespread irregularities.

Senior leaders of Mr. Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, meanwhile, said they expected a huge victory, retaining the presidency and recapturing a majority of the Parliament.

“This victory is so sweet,” said Saviour Kasukuwere, a top minister in Mr. Mugabe’s party, who added he was handily re-elected to his parliamentary seat. He rejected the accusation that the vote had been manipulated.

“President Mugabe did not rig this election,” he said. “President Mugabe was voted overwhelmingly by the people of Zimbabwe.”

But Mr. Tsvangirai said the vote failed to meet “international standards for a credible, legitimate, free and fair election.”

The Zimbabwe Election Commission has not released official results in the presidential election, but from the tone of Mr. Tsvangirai’s statement, it appeared that his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, was headed for defeat.

“In our view, the outcome of this election is illegitimate,” Mr. Tsvangirai, 61, said in a statement. “But more importantly, the shoddy manner in which it has been conducted and the consequent illegitimacy of the result will plunge this country into a serious crisis.”

The vote, which took place Wednesday, was meant to resolve years of political crisis in Zimbabwe, ending an uneasy power-sharing agreement that put the ruling party and the opposition into government together.

More at the link.

PREVIOUSLY: "Zimbabwe Opposition Grows Bolder."

Edward Snowden Granted One-Year Asylum in Russia

The Los Angeles Times reports, "Edward Snowden granted asylum, leaves Moscow airport in taxi," and "Snowden asylum may presage rocky period in U.S.-Russia ties."

WASHINGTON — Now that Russia has granted temporary asylum to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the question is not whether the decision will hurt U.S.-Russian relations but, rather, how bad the damage will be.

Russian officials maintained Thursday that the action was "insignificant," in the overall relationship with Washington. But the White House reacted angrily, a contrast with President Obama's first term, when the administration was eager to strengthen ties with Russia to enlist the Kremlin's help on an array of issues.

More at the Guardian UK, "White House 'reconsidering' Russia summit after Snowden given asylum."

And I always love watching Democracy Now! Communist Amy Goodman cheers against the United States, and of course bringing on clueless hacks like Spencer Ackerman adds a special comedy to the reporting. This guy's a crack international affairs analyst!