More Lovely Anais Zanotti

I posted on this lady a couple of weeks back, "Anais Zanotti Shows Off in Bikini at Miami Beach."

And here she is again at Egotastic!, "Anais Zanotti, Your Nipple Peeking Bikini Body is Killing Me Ever So Kindly."

BONUS: More blogging and Rule 5 goodness from...

* Blackmailers Don't Shoot, "Saturday Linkfest: Calling out in Transit."

* Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY."

* Knuckledraggin', "I Know!"

* Pirate's, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is Mother Earth being upset over Someone Else driving a fossil fueled vehicle which causes cold and snow, you might just be a Warmist."

* Today's Big Hit, "If You Like Girls Because Bewbs (20 photos)" (via Linkiest).

* Twitchy, "'Don't dish if you can't handle it': Dana Loesch schooling Meghan McCain is a thing of beauty."

P.S. I cut back a bit on the huge weekend Rule 5 roundups, because they take a long time. But please do drop you links if you'd like to be linked up randomly in any case.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich Feeds 2016 Presidential Speculation

At WSJ, "Kasich Declines to Rule Out 2016 Run." (At Memeorandum.)



I thought it was a great interview. Becca Lower, not so much...

.@KatMcKinley Indeed! @JohnKasich

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 23, 2014

@AmPowerBlog @KatMcKinley Did we watch the same interview? #shm @JohnKasich

— Becca Lower (@BeccaJLower) March 23, 2014

Kasich’s proposed 2.75% severance tax called ‘unwieldy, unrealistic and unworkable' http://t.co/TnykoeUbRM // @AmPowerBlog @KatMcKinley

— Becca Lower (@BeccaJLower) March 23, 2014

CBO Report Confirms Gov. #Kasich is Wrong About Medicaid Expansion http://t.co/9KZY0LAIhj // @AmPowerBlog @KatMcKinley #foxnewssunday #tcot

— Becca Lower (@BeccaJLower) March 23, 2014

Pakistan Censors Entire International New York Times Cover Story

Here's the original report at the New York Times, "What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden."

Folks weren't happy in Islamabad.

See Blazing Cat Fur, "NYT report on Al Qaeda is censored in Pakistan."

What Pakistan doesn't want you to read is what Pakistan knew about bin Laden. No Puns. NYT vs INYT (Pak). Via @nycjim pic.twitter.com/YlgN2DEXiq

— Subel (@svbel) March 22, 2014

As Soon as Nate Silver Starts Projecting GOP Victories, Progressives Unsheath the Knives on Former Leftist Wonder Boy

Nate Silver and his 538 blog became the gold standard of leftist election talking points during the last two presidential election cycles. It was too easy, of course, with Barack Obama rolling up a big win against a pathetically outmatched John McCain in 2008, and also in 2012, when the left's character assassination machine helped destroy Mitt Romney, whose prescient criticism of the Democrat nominee is now playing out in real time on issues from ObamaCare to Russia in Ukraine.

I can remember during those years that leftists, especially bloggers, would respond to any suggestion of Republican electoral success by pointing to the latest projections at 538, which were considered unassailable.

And what's happened now? Well, Silver's abandoned the media's Democrat Party headquarters at the New York Times to start his own media venture, and he's coming under fire. For example, Wednesday at the Week, "Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight and the dangers of being ideologically neutral."

Interesting how no one was slamming Silver for being "ideologically neutral" when he was projecting Democrat electoral victories. Now though, the knives are out. Here's Paul Krugman, the New York Times blogging economist and leftist thought-enforcer, "Tarnished Silver":

Timothy Egan joins the chorus of those dismayed by Nate Silver’s new FiveThirtyEight. I [sic] sorry, but I have to agree: so far it looks like something between a disappointment and a disaster.

But I’d argue that many of the critics are getting the problem wrong. It’s not the reliance on data; numbers can be good, and can even be revelatory. But data never tell a story on their own. They need to be viewed through the lens of some kind of model, and it’s very important to do your best to get a good model. And that usually means turning to experts in whatever field you’re addressing.

Unfortunately, Silver seems to have taken the wrong lesson from his election-forecasting success. In that case, he pitted his statistical approach against campaign-narrative pundits, who turned out to know approximately nothing. What he seems to have concluded is that there are no experts anywhere, that a smart data analyst can and should ignore all that...

More.

Here's Silver's forecast, "FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecast: GOP Is Slight Favorite in Race for Senate Control." (At Memeorandum.)

Frankly, Silver's probably less bullish than most analysts projecting big GOP gains this year, like Alan Abramowitz, Charlie Cook, and Larry Sabato.

Yet, here's Silver right in the sweet spot getting attacked by depraved leftist political assassins who won't tolerate deviance from the accepted Democrat Party line. Joining Krugman at the New York Times is Timothy Egan, "Creativity vs. Quants," and Balloon Juice piles on, slamming Silver for his "unwarranted contrarianism." Really? Unwarranted? Literally everyone's predicting a big Senate romp in November. But poor Nate's projections are "unwarranted," being so at odds with the left's pathetic party line.

F-king leftist partisans and morons. Lucky for the rest of us they're not only stupid but screwed.

Added: From the Right Scoop, "Obama’s Favorite Oracle Nate Silver Predicts Republicans Win BIG; Keith Ellison Disagrees Because Nuh-uh!"

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



More at Theo's, "Toons..."

And at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Nite Funnies (early edition)," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

Still more at Legal Insurrection, "Laughingstocks."

Behold John Hinderaker's Breathtaking Demolition of Washington Post Far-Left Reporter Juliet Eilperin

Here's the Power Line piece that was top-trending all day yesterday at Memeorandum, and is still up top, "The Washington Post Responds to Me, and I Reply to the Post."

It's John Hinderaker responding to this hacktacular smear by Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin, at Thursday's WaPo, "The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers."

Hindaker's original takedown is here, "WASHINGTON POST FALLS FOR LEFT-WING FRAUD, EMBARRASSES ITSELF [UPDATED WITH POST'S RESPONSE]."

And here's the authors' response at WaPo, "Why we wrote about the Koch Industries and its leases in Canada’s oil sands."

Hinderaker performs one of the most effective demolitions of leftist media bias I've seen in a long time. Be sure to check the links. But as I was reading through it was the personal background on Juliet Eilperin that was especially clinching:

Why would the Washington Post embarrass itself by republishing a thoroughly discredited attempt to link the Koch brothers to the Keystone Pipeline? Because that is a Democratic Party talking point, and the Post is a Democratic Party newspaper. But the truth is a little worse than that.

Who is Post reporter Juliet Eilperin? Among other things, she is married to Andrew Light, who writes on climate policy for the Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress is an Obama administration front group headed by John Podesta, who is a “special advisor” to the Obama administration. CAP’s web site, Think Progress, has carried out a years-long vendetta against the Koch brothers that has focused largely on the environment. Ms. Eilperin’s conflict in writing about environmental issues has already been a subject of controversy at the Post. The paper’s ombudsman should examine this latest example of Ms. Eilperin throwing facts to the winds in her eagerness to promote her (and her husband’s) far-left agenda.

I'm not one to believe that perfect objectivity is possible, even for journalistic institutions whose very legitimacy is sustained by a purported commitment to rigorous nonpartisanship. But when reporters are so thoroughly corrupted by just ridiculously outlandish conflicts of interest we can throw all benefit of the doubt out the window. Eilperin's sham objectivity is simply disgusting.

Hinderaker has yet another update, "THE POST: DEPANTSED BUT NOT DELOUSED." And embedded there is Brit Hume on Twitter:

Two @washingtonpost reporters respond to @powerlineblog's evisceration of their work. They get eviscerated again. http://t.co/6dgRw1amdP

— Brit Hume (@brithume) March 22, 2014

'Microaggressions': The Left's Latest Bogus 'Racism' Meme

I first heard about "microaggression" last November during the flap at UCLA, where Professor Val Rust was attacked for correcting mistakes on writing assignments:

About 25 students participated in the sit-in, in the classroom of Val Rust, professor emeritus of education. Watson – a student in that class – said Rust’s course was one of many in which students of “color and consciousness” have experienced discrimination. Of about 10 students in the class, 5 participated in the sit-in. Participants read a letter listing their complaints and a series of demands for reform. Regular coursework was suspended for about an hour because of the sit-in.

“A hostile campus climate has been the norm for Students of Color in this class throughout the quarter as our epistemological and methodological commitments have been repeatedly questioned by our classmates and our instructor,” the group’s letter reads. The statement accuses “the professor” (it does not identify Rust by name) of correcting “perceived grammatical choices that in actuality reflect ideologies” and “repeatedly questioning the value of our work on social identity and the related dynamics of oppression, power and privilege.” The “barrage of questions by white colleagues and the grammar ‘lessons’ by the professor have contributed to a hostile class climate,” it continues.

Also, from William Jacobson, at Legal Insurrection from last year, "UCLA Prof accused of racist “micro-aggression” for correcting student grammar."

And tonight, "2014 – Year of the Microaggression."

That's great.

I tweeted to William last night as well, a piece from the New York Times:

.@LegInsurrection Students See Many Slights as Racial ‘Microaggressions’... http://t.co/vh210wslzy

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 22, 2014

Vans Skatepark Huntington Beach Grand Opening

I took my youngest son down to H.B. today for the grand opening of the new skatepark.

The O.C. Register had a write-up yesterday, "Vans to open free skatepark in H.B. Saturday."

And at the Vans homepage, "Vans Skatepark in Huntington Beach, CA Grand Opening 3/22."



I'll have more later. That clover bowl is even bigger than it looks in pictures!

Matt Drudge Liberty Tax

A little dust-up yesterday, at Twitchy, "Matt Drudge: ‘Just paid the Obamacare penalty for not ‘getting covered”."

Also at Liberty Unyielding, "Liberals race to shoot down Drudge’s ‘liberty tax’ Obamacare tweet," and Big Government, "‘LIBERTY TAX’: WHITE HOUSE, MEDIA ATTACK AFTER DRUDGE PAYS OBAMACARE OPT-OUT PENALTY." (Via Drudge Report, "OBAMACARE TAX COLLECTION BEGINS; WHITE HOUSE SLAMS DRUDGE 'LIE'.")

Obama media teams know they will not get audited for avoiding taxes. I don't have this luxury. So they mock, ridicule http://t.co/Cg23N734R9
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) March 21, 2014

Belle Knox Update

At the Other McCain, "Is Everything Feminist ‘Empowerment’ Now? Or Is @Belle_Knox a Sociopath?"

And at Journal 14, "The Feminist Empowerment of @Belle_Knox."

BONUS: At Reason, "Porn Star Belle Knox on Being Libertarian..."

Chinese Satellite Spots Possible Debris from Flight MH370

At BCF, "Chinese satellite spots possible plane debris in southern Indian Ocean - again."

And at Telegraph UK, "MH370: Chinese satellite detects 'floating object'."

Still more at London's Daily Mail, "MH370 LATEST: China says satellite has located 72ft object in Southern Indian Ocean 75 miles from where previous possible wreckage was located as Australian pilots spot small objects."

2014 Major League Baseball Opens in Sydney, Australia

The Dodgers and the Diamondbacks opened the 2014 today at the Sydney Cricket Grounds, which was transformed for major league baseball.

At SI, "Watch: MLB reinvents historic Sydney Cricket Ground for Opening Day baseball." And, "Dodgers, Diamondbacks go down under for Opening Day in Australia."

And at LAT, "Baseball is a change-up for Sydney Cricket Ground." Plus, "Scott Van Slyke leads Dodgers past Arizona, 3-1, in season opener."

'Hot-shaming really is a thing now...'

Well, you can't be flaunting your hotness, heh.

At Instapundit, "THAT’S THE LAST TIME I WORK OUT AT THE HARRISON BERGERON FITNESS CLUB: Gym Tells Hot, Fit Woman to Cover Up Because She’s Intimidating Others. 'Hot-shaming really is a thing now'."

Theft, Assault, and Vandalism Charges Filed Against Professor Mireille Miller-Young

From Eugene Volokh, at the Washington Post, "Theft, assault, and vandalism charges filed against UC Santa Barbara professor."

And don't miss the comments section, heh.

PREVIOUSLY: "UCSB Police Department Releases Report on Professor Mireille Miller-Young."

Challenges Ahead for Reds Closer Aroldis Chapman

An analysis of the pitcher's prospects after getting nailed by that line drive, at NYT, "Tough Path for Closer After Liner to the Face."

First Kiss

It's a viral hit.

See NYT, "A Kiss Is Just a Kiss, Unless It’s an Ad for a Clothing Company."

Kate Upton is New Face of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics

She's living the American dream.

At LAT, "Kate Upton, Bobbi Brown share collaboration, admiration."

Taliban Gunmen Kill Nine in Attack on Serena Hotel in Kabul

Absolutely vicious, cold-blooded murderers.

At the Wall Street Journal, "A Taliban Massacre Jolts Heart of Kabul: Attack Fuels Fears of Widespread Bloodshed Ahead of Election":

KABUL—The four men sat down for dinner, ordered juice and then excused themselves to the bathroom. There, they extracted tiny pistols from the soles of their shoes, and, after returning to the restaurant of Kabul's most luxurious hotel, started shooting patrons point-blank.

The first target was the Afghan family of Sardar Ahmad, a 40-year-old Afghan journalist with Agence France-Presse, the government said. The gunmen shot dead Mr. Ahmad, his wife, his 5-year-old daughter Nilofar and 3-year-old son Omar. His youngest son Abuzar, not even two, is in coma with bullets in his head.

Then, the gunmen shot other prominent Afghans and foreign officials who had gathered on Thursday night for a festive dinner at the Serena Hotel here. Soon after, at least nine guests—including a U.S. citizen, two Canadians and a Paraguayan election observer—and the four attackers were dead and several injured. Even by the grim standards of the Afghan war, the Serena bloodbath was shocking.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the killings, saying that such attacks "are carried out for the purposes of the outsiders and unfortunately, the victims are innocent civilians, children and women."

The Taliban, which claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack, have carried out a series of assaults in recent days aimed at disrupting the presidential elections on April 5 to pick a successor to Mr. Karzai.

A successful election—combined with the planned departure of foreign forces—would mark the first democratic transfer of power in Afghanistan's history.

That would undercut the Taliban's appeal, rooted in resentment against foreign presence and the widespread corruption of Mr. Karzai's administration. This explains the Taliban's attempts to derail the vote and undermine its legitimacy.

The Taliban's tactic is certain to reduce the international role in vote monitoring. The National Democratic Institute, a Washington nonprofit that planned to observe the vote, ordered its personnel out of the country Friday after one of its members was killed in the Thursday attack.

As some of the leading candidates voice fears that Mr. Karzai's favorite will win the presidency by fraud, the presence of foreign election observers is needed to legitimize any result. In contrast, their departure as a result of the Serena attack would make any dispute over the outcome much more difficult to adjudicate. Such a dispute could fracture the country's political and military establishment to benefit of the Taliban, who hope to retake political power..

Mr. Karzai isn't allowed to run for president again under the Afghan constitution. The leading candidates in the race—former Foreign Ministers Abdullah Abdullah and Zalmai Rassoul, and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani — have been crisscrossing the country this week, holding campaign rallies despite Taliban threats....
Posing as diners and hiding six tiny palm-sized pistols in the soles of their bulky shoes, the four gunmen managed to get past the metal detector at the entrance to the hotel, Afghan interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said.

Mr. Sediqqi said the government was investigating whether the attackers had some inside help at the hotel. Serena manages its own security force.

Waiters at the hotel said the men then took a table at the buffet-style restaurant, where guests had gathered to celebrate the Persian New Year, known as Nowruz.

With many other eateries in the city off-bounds to foreigners after the January attack that killed 21 at a Lebanese restaurant in Kabul, the supposedly safe Serena was one of the few locations where international diplomats, aid workers, United Nations officials and prominent Afghans still gathered regularly.

On Thursday night, four parliament members were dining there. As the gunmen shot and injured one of the lawmakers, the others tried to fight back by throwing glasses at the Taliban, Mr. Sediqqi said.

The wife of Mr. Ahmad, the slain journalist, yelled at the gunmen, telling them "Shoot me, not my children," said waiters at the hotel. Pictures of the attack's aftermath showed her lying on the ground, trying to protect the children with her hand...

No Lifeline for Illegal Alien Josue Noe Sandoval-Perez as U.S Denies Appeal of Deportation Order

Of course, the New York Times wants people to feel sorry for this guy. For me it's like what took so long?

See, "Paying Price, 16 Years Later, for an Illegal Entry":

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The cellblock intercom awoke Josue Noe Sandoval-Perez at 1 o’clock on a frigid January morning at a detention center in northwest Missouri: Get your things, get ready to go. Immigration officials were preparing to whisk him away.

A day earlier the government denied an appeal of his deportation order, but no one told his family, nor was he allowed to call.

So while Mr. Sandoval-Perez, 41, an illegal immigrant with a previous deportation on his record, was beginning his journey back to his native Mexico, his family was clinging to hope at a rally in a park here. Holding signs, they argued that he had been in the country for 16 years, had no criminal record, paid taxes and was the primary breadwinner for his children — one an American citizen, the other an immigrant who is here legally.

He was dropped off that night in Matamoros, a violence-ridden Mexican border town. When he called his wife, Josefina Aguilar, from outside a bus station to tell her what happened, gunshots could be heard.

“I was just crying a lot, like my world was over,” Ms. Aguilar, 40, recalled.

Mr. Sandoval-Perez’s case — as described by him, his family and court documents — previews the difficulties President Obama will face in a review he ordered last week, asking the Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, to come up with a more “humane” deportation policy.

Like Mr. Sandoval-Perez, many immigrants here illegally might qualify for protection from deportation if strong ties to family and community and steady work records were taken into account, but they also have past immigration violations that could count heavily against them.

The review comes too late to help Mr. Sandoval-Perez. But his case was among dozens that immigrant advocates presented to the White House last Friday as an example of how Mr. Obama’s enforcement policies had torn apart generally law-abiding families, separating breadwinning parents from children who have known no other country but the United States.

“Josue is a perfect example of a case that they should have exercised prosecutorial discretion on,” said Richard Morales, the detention prevention coordinator at the PICO National Network, an organization of faith-based community groups. “We welcome the news from the president, but we need to see details.”

In an interview at an apartment that he shares with his sister-in-law in Mexico City, Mr. Sandoval-Perez was more pointed about what he wanted from Mr. Obama.

“He has the power to end this discrimination, to change this,” said Mr. Sandoval-Perez, holding a blue plastic folder with all his deportation documents. “Families have to stop being separated.”

Obama couldn't give a sh*t about this f**ker. The Democrats just want amnesty as a massive leftist voter registration drive. Meanwhile, the White House has been deporting the sad loser aliens in record numbers in order to take some of the heat of the Dreamers initiative. Damned Democrats got you coming and going in immigration, the sneaky bastards.

Transcript of Final Moments of Flight MH370

It's interesting, even if it's not telling us a whole lot.

Revealed: the final 54 minutes of communication from #MH370. http://t.co/1IHo0Wvovp

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 21, 2014

CNN's been getting a ratings boost out of the tragedy. But you can't keep this clunker of a story around much longer. Sad.