Fully Automatic Wolverine Claws

Heh, this is cool.

At TechCrunch, "Crazy Dude Builds Fully Automatic Wolverine Claws In His Garage."

North Carolina #Democrat Clay Aiken Wanted to Punch Ann Coulter in the Face

Stay classy Dems.

At Sooper Mexican, "War On Women!! Guess Which Democrat Candidate Deleted a Tweet Saying He Wanted to Punch the Face of a Conservative Woman!!"

Aiken's already a longshot. But this pickup by Sooper Mexican could help deflate the hateful Democrat's campaign before it even takes off.

More at Memeorandum.

The #NBA Makes Its Case Against #DonaldSterling

The dramatic front-page story at today's Los Angeles Times, "NBA makes its case against Clippers owner Donald Sterling."

This morning's @LATimes hard copy. #DonaldSterling. #NBA pic.twitter.com/DlrKh9N9GC

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 21, 2014

More, "NBA confident about its case against Donald Sterling," and "NBA alleges Sterling-led Clippers tried to cover up scandal."

Republicans Beat Back Tea Party Challengers

I helped my kid with homework last night and also prepped for today's international relations class. So I'm still getting up to speed on the election results from yesterday.

But here's USA Today, "Tea Party challengers fall short in primaries":

Sen. Mitch McConnell decisively shut down a primary challenge to his 30-year tenure as the Republican choice for Senate in Kentucky. The Associated Press called the race for McConnell minutes after the last polls closed in the state Tuesday evening.

McConnell's primary victory over businessman and Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin was one of several for the mainstream GOP Tuesday in primary races around the country that have at times suggested the party is at war with itself. In Georgia, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Idaho, Tea Party-backed candidates also lost to establishment favorites.

McConnell raised more than twice as much money as Bevin, which he used to hammer his rival with attack ads. He also got a boost from his Kentucky colleague Sen. Rand Paul, also a Tea Party favorite.

Even before Tuesday's voting, McConnell's campaign had turned its focus to well-funded Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. Grimes, Kentucky's secretary of State, won her primary Tuesday with little opposition.

McConnell will need to bring Bevin's supporters into his fold as he takes on Grimes, says political scientist Ernest Yanarella of the University of Kentucky. "I suspect the Tea Party may prove to be sore losers. They could very well just sit out the Senate election itself and that would certainly be bad news for him." ...

In a crowded field in the Georgia Republican Senate primary, businessman David Perdue and U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston advanced to a July 22 runoff. Coming up short: Reps. Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey and former secretary of State Karen Handel, who had been endorsed by conservative firebrand Sarah Palin.

Georgia Democrats nominated Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Georgia senator Sam Nunn, whose name and fundraising strength have given Democrats hope for a competitive race in a traditionally red state.

Like the Kentucky race, a split between Republican factions was on the ballot in Oregon, where surgeon Monica Wehby defeated state Rep. Jason Conger in the race to oppose incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley. Wehby was backed by 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and Conger had been endorsed by Rick Santorum, the 2012 candidate who beat Romney in Iowa.

Incumbents held off Tea Party challenges in Pennsylvania, where seven-term Rep. Bill Shuster defeated retired Coast Guard Capt. Art Halvorson, and in Idaho, where eight-term Rep. Mike Simpson defeated lawyer Bryan Smith...

Also, "How GOP incumbents beat Tea Party rebellion."

More at Legal Insurrection, "Primary Night: McConnell wins (KY), Perdue-Kingston Runoff (GA), Wehby (OR)."

Dems tried to destroy Monica Wehby with vicious smears alleging she stalked her ex-husband. At Politico, "Second harassment accusation vs. Monica Wehby," and "Monica Wehby wins Oregon GOP Senate nomination."

More Republicans Than #Democrats See Military Service as Asset for Presidential Candidates

Naturally, leftists despise the military. But see Pew Research:

Republican and Republican leaners respond strongly to military experience: 58% say they would be more likely to support a candidate with military experience, the top positive trait for Republicans of the 16 tested in the survey. Military experience also tops the list for Democrats and Democratic leaners, but they are not as enthusiastic as Republicans: 31% say they would be more likely to support a candidate who has served in the military, while 62% say this wouldn’t matter to them. While a positive for both Democrats and Republicans, military experience is not easy to find among the list of much-talked-about potential 2016 candidates.

Recall what Democrats really like in their candidates:

Boko Haram Suspected in Latest Nigerian Terror Attack

Because that hashtag activism is just working wonders.

At Telegraph UK, "Nigeria bomb blast: death toll expected to rise as 118 fatalities confirmed":

Boko Haram Islamist militants suspected in twin attacks in Jos which leave at least 118 dead.

Back-to-back bomb blasts killed at least 118 people and wounded 45 in the crowded business district of the central Nigerian city of Jos on Tuesday, emergency services said, in an attack that appeared to bear the hallmarks of the Boko Haram insurgents.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the militant group Boko Haram, which has set off bombs across the north and centre of Nigeria in an increasingly bloody campaign for an Islamic state, was likely to be the prime suspect in what would rank among their deadliest single attacks in five years of insurrection.

Boko Haram grabbed world headlines by abducting more than 200 schoolgirls on April 14 from the northeastern village of Chibok. Britain, the United States and France have pledged to help rescue them.

If the Jos attack was the handiwork of Boko Haram, it would show their growing reach in Africa's top oil producing and most populous country, striking out beyond their heartland in Nigeria's semi-arid and weakly governed northeast. Several bombs have exploded outside that region over the past month.

It was also likely calculated to stoke civil strife in Nigeria's most combustible ethnic and sectarian tinder box. Jos and the surrounding Plateau state have seen thousands killed in tit-for-tat violence between largely Christian Berom farmers and Muslim Fulani cattle herders over the past decade.

Also at Atlas Shrugs, "2 Islamic Bomb Blasts in Mainly Christian Area in Nigeria Kill at Least 118."

'Whatever happened to Vox and FiveThirtyEight?'

At Althouse.

I've never even clicked on the new 538, and I've read and linked Vox exactly once. I just don't care about these sites and they're not generating very much buzz, except among those noting how they're not generating very much buzz, like Althouse.

Veterans Administration Scandal Explodes

Looks like this is the big story of the day, at the New York Times, "Obama Faces New Test in Mismanagement at Veterans Hospitals."

And see John Fund, at National Review, "Lessons of the VA Scandal":

If our government has any obligation to fulfill its many promises on health care, it should be first and foremost to the men and women who served in our armed forces. But the scandal over hidden waiting lists at a growing number of veterans’ hospitals (seven so far) — wherein dozens of veterans died while waiting months for vital treatment, and the VA covered up the lengthy wait times — should make everyone wonder whether we can place our trust in a government-managed health-care system. The Dayton Daily News reported on Sunday that its investigation of a database of claims paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that the words “delay in treatment” were used 167 times. The VA paid out a total of $36.4 million to settle the claims. There could well be many more cases of “death by delay” at the VA that never came to light.

Are there lessons in the VA scandal for the rest of us if Obamacare survives and even expands?

RTWT.

More at Memeorandum.

Old School

I'm in meetings for our political science interviews on campus today. More blogging tonight.

I saw this blurb on my buddy Skatemaster Tate's Facebook page:

The War After the War — #GWOT

At National Journal, "Inside America's Shadow War on Terror—and Why It Will Never End":

The muezzin's call to predawn prayers had not yet woken the seaside Somali town of Barawe when a lone figure stepped out of a two-story villa near the water's edge. In the darkness of a walled compound, he smoked a cigarette, the glow of ash rhythmically illuminating his face. It was an effect that was heightened by the night-vision goggles focused on him. When the man stepped back inside, the commander of Navy SEAL Team Six, his own face hidden under black grease, directed his commandos to take up their positions and storm the villa. The date was Oct. 5, 2013, and inside was a Kenyan named Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, or Ikrimah—the leader of al-Shabaab suspected of masterminding the gruesome killing of non-Muslims at Nairobi's Westgate Mall.

Two hours later and nearly 3,000 miles away, a Libyan named Nazih Abdul-Hamad al-Ruqai, or Anas al-Libi, was returning from dawn prayers as the sun began to rise over Tripoli. His sedan pulled up to a comfortable house in an upscale suburb of the capital and was suddenly boxed in from the side and the front by two white vans with darkened windows. Commandos from the Army's elite Delta Force counterterrorism unit leaped out, one training his gun on al-Libi from the front as another broke the window, pulling the terrorism suspect out of the car and bundling him into one of the vans before both vehicles and a third that had been hidden sped off. The entire operation, caught on a surveillance camera and posted on YouTube, took 60 seconds.

President Obama wants deeply to convince Americans that the time of perpetual war is over. "America is at a crossroads," he said last year in a speech that was meant to reassure a weary public that the post-Sept. 11 era of invasion, regime change, and nation-building was nearly done. "Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror,' but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America."

Indeed, even after the last U.S. combat troops leave Afghanistan this year, the shadow war against jihadi terrorists that began on Sept. 11, 2001, will rage on, executed by comingled military, intelligence, and law-enforcement capabilities using legal authorities that blur distinctions between uncommon criminals and enemy combatants. Terrorism suspects caught in the hard stare of the U.S. counterterrorism network will still be arrested by U.S. law-enforcement agents overseas; snatched off the streets of lawless cities by U.S. special operations forces; eviscerated by CIA drone strikes in remote areas far from any declared war zone; and interrogated under the rules of warfare before being read their Miranda rights and prosecuted in federal courts. And that life-and-death struggle will continue to play out largely in secret.

Continue reading.

Macklemore Celebrates EMP Museum Opening with Blatantly Anti-Semitic Costume Attire

So, "One Love" songmakers are raving anti-Semites as well?

Makes sense. Leftism is an evil ideology of hate.

At BuzzFeed, "Macklemore Causes Controversy With Costume That Resembles Jewish Stereotypes."

And at the Daily Dot, "Macklemore performs surprise show in offensive costume."

Super unsurprised that Seattlites didn't think Macklemore's Jewish costume was offensive http://t.co/FJyzzgFnPp

— Michael Barthel (@michaelbarthel) May 18, 2014

Yes, "super unsurprised" (no doubt).

Climate Science in Chaos

Lots of links.

At Power Line, "WHY GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISM ISN’T SCIENCE," and "THE NEXT CLIMATE SCANDAL?"

Following the links takes us to Roy Spencer, "The Bullying of Bengtsson and the Coming Climate Disruption Hypocalypse."

Climate science in chaos due to shortage of scary synonyms http://t.co/zKkmiAIGAT #TCOT pic.twitter.com/k4FhB7RjsX

— The People's Cube (@ThePeoplesCube) May 17, 2014

BONUS: At Astute Bloggers, "THE DEBATE IS OVER: MAN-MADE GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE IS BULLSHIT."

Charles (Chic) Burlingame Prayer Card Displayed at National September 11 Memorial and Museum

Debra Burlingame said she was pleased with the terrific ceremony she attended at the September 11 Museum. Her brother's prayer card is among the items found in the wreckage at the Pentagon.

See the New York Daily News, "Prayer card belonging to pilot among 9/11 items collected at newly dedicated museum."

It's the prayer card from their funeral for their mother, Patricia Ann Burlingame.

True Liberals Must Debunk the Left's Campus Bigots

From Professor Michael Curtis, at the American Thinker, "Liberals Must Refute the Leftist Bigots on Campus":

Tis the season of Commencement discontent. Let me count in alphabetical order the number of universities affected by the growing intolerance of bigots on campuses in North America.  Among them are Azusa Pacific, Brandeis, Brown, California, Concordia, Haverford, North Carolina, Rutgers, Smith, and Swarthmore.  Withdrawals by individuals to be honored or invited to speak, whether due to university action or voluntary, are now as familiar as leftist indoctrination of university students.

There is always an excuse, a feeble excuse, for the protests, whether the rationale is an action or a supposed action by the person to be honored, or some controversial words written or spoken. Among those absurd excuses are: the attempts by administrators to restore order when a protest was disrupting campus life, criticism of some features of Islam, International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies that predated the tenure of the recipient towards developing countries, police racial profiling in New York City, views on immigration policy, disapproval of abortion.

The objects of the intolerance are not extreme political activists, but prominent and distinguished members of the professions and society. They should be named. Robert L. Birgeneau, a former Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley who is in fact admired for liberal social views. Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, the first woman to hold this position and one of the most powerful women in the world. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Somali-born activist who has made critical and controversial remarks about the religion of Islam and the ideology of Islamism from which she has herself suffered. Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State and Provost at Stanford. Charles Murray, distinguished author known for controversial views on race class, and intelligence. Raymond Kelly, former New York City Police Commissioner. Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank.  These multiple incidents today are reminiscent of the event in 1983 when Jeanne Kirkpatrick, political scientist and former US Ambassador to the United Nations, was denied a platform at Berkeley.

Although these distinguished people would exemplify the diversity that universities claim to foster, their offence was that they did not agree, or were thought not to agree, with the protestors. They have offended the ideological conformity of the protesting intolerant bigots who would be numbed by hearing views other than their own. The arrogance and close-mindedness of the protestors prevents them from listening to alternative points of view.

The goal of inquiry and research at colleges is to search for truth and challenge accepted points of views. But the dominant mode of protests and of much teaching in the social sciences and humanities is a form of leftist fascism, preventing speech with which one disagrees. The politically correct norm at present is not conservative or status quo views, but rather the opposite, radical intolerant ones. Do those intolerant protests help the growth of social justice?  Both practical activity and highly perverse intellectual argument suggest an answer.

The impetus to leftist politicization occurred in 1964 when the radicals in the University of California Free Speech Movement occupied the administration building in Berkeley, the first such “conquest” in the country. It led to the reshaping of curriculum in an overtly radical direction, and hiring of faculty who leaned towards those changes. It has also led to incredible ignorance, stupidity, and bigotry.

The case at hand is that of the several hundred students at Smith today whose protests led to the withdrawal of Christine Lagarde from Commencement. Their absurd message was that the IMF “was a primary culprit in the failed developmental policies implanted in some of the world’s poorest countries. This led directly to the strengthening of imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.” The young women at Smith were not informed about or thought it unimportant to mention the “oppression and abuse” of hundreds of women, not by the IMF, but by honor killings every year in Muslim countries.

The current protestors have taken to heart the answer, even if they cannot take time from their protests to read the actual text, given in 1965 by Herbert Marcuse, who taught for a number of years at Brandeis, in his essay Repressive Tolerance. Among his more engaging conclusions was that, “the objective of tolerance would call for injustice towards prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions.”  This logically meant rigid restrictions on teachings and practices with which he disagreed in educational institutions. Perhaps Marcuse did not specifically suggest the shouting down or forbidding of intellectual opponents, but his advocacy of repression or limitation of expression has been taken by the present day bigots to its logical conclusion.

Many objective studies have indicated the host of problems on campuses today: the highly disproportionate number, by very large margins, of far leftist members of university faculty, and sometimes administration; raucous and highly active leftist student groups; one sided teaching if not indoctrination in class and in texts used in many of the social sciences and in history courses; a preponderance of radical campus guest speakers; the incessant activity of radical Islamic campus organizations.

Sixty-five years ago Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote The Vital Center, a book aiming to support liberal democracy against the ideologies of communism and fascism. Though it is not directly relevant to today’s campus intolerance, the book is pertinent for its practical suggestion to “restore the balance between the individual and community.” There is an urgent need for a balance today in campus behavior and for a vigorous response to the changes in recent years in that behavior. Free speech and free thought are being limited by the actions of leftists, many of whom are aging radical revolutionaries left over from the 1960s, and the students they have indoctrinated. The desirable features of intellectual diversity, essential for any real university, are declining. It would be reasonable to argue that this issue of intellectual diversity is as important, and perhaps now more important, than the issues of racial and gender diversity.

A distinction must be drawn between the radical leftists on one hand and true liberals, a group that on the issue of intellectual freedom would include conservatives today. Liberals have to make their voices heard on campuses. They must proclaim themselves as supporters of real tolerance on campuses, the right of speakers who are not leftists to be heard, that ideological indoctrination by faculty and choice of textbooks should be criticized, that conservative faculty or speakers should not be confronted by a hostile environment, that speech codes that ban politically oriented speech be abolished, and even that administrators should question the self-perpetuation of their radical faculty and appoint real liberals and even conservatives...

Not hard.

Just let them speak. As soon as leftists utter a sound the bullshit sirens will be sounding in overtime. These people are nothing but hateful buffoons who wither at calm, cool and collected reason.

More.

Hot New Dining Trend: No Reservations and Four-Hour Waits at Trendy D.C. Restaurants

I'll pass, thank you.

At the Washington Post, "No reservations? This restaurant trend has become harder to swallow."

Tom Sietsema sees ageism and inhospitality when restaurants force guests to line up and wait.

The Emerging American Junta

At Director Blue, "AMERICAN JUNTA: An Illustrated Tale of Societal Decline."

#Mexico Divided: Stark Photos Show Urban Wealth and Poverty Side-by-Side

Recall my son's country project on Denmark?

Well, whereas the Danes have the greatest economic equality in the world, as measured by the Gini coefficient, Mexico is plagued by some of the world's worst economic inequality.

London's Daily Mail chronicles some of that, "Mexico divided: Stark unaltered photographs capture middle class affluence side-by-side with extreme urban poverty."

More, at Distractify, "These Images Of Poor And Rich Neighborhoods Side By Side Are NOT Photoshopped. How Can This Be?!"

Soldiers Fight to Save the A-10 Warthog

This is cool, via Business Week:

Here's why U.S. soldiers are fighting to save the Air Force's A-10 Warthog: http://t.co/5AF2dM0Oe1 pic.twitter.com/LNvlsqyUCa

— Businessweek (@BW) May 19, 2014

Britain Goes Halal

Don't miss this utterly mind-boggling entry at Bare Naked Islam, "First restaurants, then government schools, then supermarkets, now British universities are force-feeding their students barbarically-slaughtered halal meat without them being told."



But it couldn't happen here (wink wink).

You know, because ritual slaughtered meat is yummy, or something.

California Chrome Has Nasal Strip Problem at Belmont

It's always something.

At the Washington Post, "California Chrome’s Triple Crown could be derailed by nasal strips," and "California Chrome faces many obstacles in Triple Crown bid."