Triple-Digit Temperatures in San Diego (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Jackie Johnson's Got Your Extreme Weather Forecast."

Watch this report at ABC News 10 San Diego, "Areas of San Diego County saw triple digit heat."

Jackie Johnson's Got Your Extreme Weather Forecast

Following-up from earlier, "Triple-Digit Days Ahead," and "SoCal Heat Wave."

And at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:



More from Ms. Jackie on Twitter, "LA you are beautiful tonight."

And at the Riverside Press-Enterprise, "INLAND WEATHER: Storms move into the region as heat, flash flood advisories remain in effect (UPDATE 2)."

SoCal Heat Wave

Following-up from earlier, "Triple-Digit Days Ahead."

It's really hot. Dangerously hot.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Extreme California weather: Heat, floods and thunderstorms."

And watch, at ABC News 7 Los Angeles, "HEAT WAVE BRINGS SIZZLING TEMPS TO SOUTHLAND."

Hillary Clinton Says She's Sorry for Private Email (VIDEO)

Remember, folks also call her "Granny Clinton."

Watch, at ABC News, "Hillary Clinton 'Sorry' Her Use of Private E-Mail Has Raised Questions."

And Julie Pace has a report at AP, "Clinton Says She's Sorry for Private Email."

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) Blamed as Bomb Blast Kills at Least 15 Turkish Policemen (VIDEO)

Reuters is reporting at least 15 police officers were killed in the blast. See, "Bombs kill 15 Turkish police officers as jets strike PKK in Iraq."

Plus, at the New York Times, "Turkey Says Troops Pursued Fighters From Kurdistan Workers' Party Into Iraq."

And watch, at Euronews, "14 police officers killed by PKK bomb attack in eastern Turkey," and France 24, "Turkey: Ankara confirms 'short-term' incursion into Iraq after violent clashes with PKK."

BONUS: From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "BREAKING: TURKEY EXPLODES IN POLITICAL VIOLENCE AS OBAMA ALLY ERDOGAN UNLEASHES SHOCK TROOPS."

Triple-Digit Days Ahead

Here's Tamara Berg, at KCRA News 3 Sacramento:



I'll have more on the SoCal heatwave later. It was 98 degrees in North Long Beach when I left work a little after 1:00pm today. And it's supposed stay hot through the week.

Rachel Weisz – Video Animation: How Did the United Nations Get So Big?

This is actually pretty good.

And keep in mind, Weisz is Jewish. Her parents fled interwar Austria to escape the Nazis. She's as good as anyone to narrate a video on the growth of the U.N., despite that institution's flaws.

At the Guardian UK, "How did the UN get so big, asks Rachel Weisz – video animation":

The United Nations began with 51 member states and an annual budget of $19m. Seventy years on the UN has 193 member nations and spends $40bn a year. Actor Rachel Weisz looks back at its history and asks: how did the UN get so big? And – as the UN marks its 70th birthday – has it stayed true to its founding principles of spreading human rights, social progress and upholding international justice?

Also on YouTube, here.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis Released from Jail (VIDEO)

I'm not all that passionate about this story. It's hardly the hill to die on, IMHO.

She's a public official, an elected one at that, and it seems like her responsibility would be to respect the recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. Sure, her religious liberties are implicated, but cases in which it's a private party seeking religious exceptions are certainly on firmer ground.

In any case, at the Louisville Courier-Journal, "Kim Davis released from jail; she must allow licenses":

Ending a constitutional standoff, at least for now, a federal judge Monday ordered Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis released from jail – but on the condition she doesn’t interfere with her deputies issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents four couples who sued her, said its goal has been achieved.

“This case was brought to ensure that all residents of Rowan County, gay and straight, could obtain marriage licenses,” William Sharp, legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a news release.

But Davis’ lawyers at Liberty Counsel declined to say if she would comply with U.S. District Judge David Bunning’s order that she shall not meddle, “directly or indirectly,” with giving licenses to “all legally eligible couples.”

Roger Gannam, one of her lawyers, said she will still seek an accommodation from Gov. Steve Beshear and the courts to protect her religious liberty, and Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of the Orlando-based Christian legal ministry, said i it would continue to pursue the multiple appeals she has filed.

“Be assured that Kim Davis hasn’t changed her mind and hasn’t changed her conscience,” Gannam told Yahoo News in a live interview.

Staver, in a statement, said: “We are pleased that Kim Davis has been ordered released” but "she can never recover the past six days of her life spent in an isolated jail cell like a common criminal because of her conscience and religious convictions.”

Bunning, who jailed Davis Thursday for refusing to comply with his order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, said in a two-page order that he was letting her out because he’d been assured her deputies were doing so.

"The court is therefore satisfied that the Rowan County Clerk’s Office is fulfilling its obligation to issue marriage licenses…consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Obergefell and this court’s August 12 order,” he wrote. “For these reasons, the Court’s prior contempt sanction against Defendant Davis is hereby lifted."

More.

And at Althouse, where she has the link to Rasmussen's poll, "'Voters Show Little Sympathy for Jailed Clerk in Gay Marriage Spat'." (Via Memeorandum.)

Three Books Came Yesterday

Following-up, "Whoo Hoo! Michael Walsh's New Book Came Today, The Devil's Pleasure Palace."

Actually, three books arrived. I tweeted my excitement, here and here.

I also picked up Dick and Liz Cheney, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, which I've mentioned numerous times. It's bound to be a classic.

Also, from Mark Bauerlein, ed., The State of the American Mind: 16 Leading Critics on the New Anti-Intellectualism.

I'm starting with The Devil's Pleasure Palace, which is not a long book, so perhaps I can finish it before the end of the week. I'm looking forward to getting into the others ASAP.

More blogging tonight.

Ann Coulter Interview at Pajamas Media (VIDEO)

It's a 20-minute interview, so you might as well grab a cup of coffee, heh.

Here, "PJTV Exclusive: Ann Coulter Takes on Bill O'Reilly and Fox News."

And her new book's here, Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole.

And ICYMI, "The Left is Turning the U.S. into a Hellhole."

Splits Plague Parties as Fall Campaign Starts

Ho hum.

I can see that the summer upheavals are still being reported in "plague-like" terms.

At WSJ, "Splits Plague Both Parties as Fall Primary Campaign Starts":

HOOKSETT, N.H.—The 2016 White House race barrels into the fall feeling at times more like a reality-television spectacle than a presidential campaign, with a crop of unconventional candidates upstaging their politically pedigreed rivals.

This split between the outsiders and their more traditional counterparts reflects a deeper rift in the country between those who continue to trust government and the elected officials who run it, and the ever-growing share of Americans who don’t and pine for someone new.

Both parties enter the post-Labor Day phase of their primaries with lineups that have taken on an unexpected shape. The 2016 field was billed as one of the most accomplished in a generation, particularly on the Republican side, so the rise of celebrity real-estate mogul Donald Trump in the GOP contest and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race have come as a surprise to some party insiders and voters.

Yet the underlying dynamics spurring some form of a voter revolt took root years ago and they continue to spread through a dissatisfied electorate. The outsider candidates dominated the summer; this fall will test whether the political veterans can sell voters on the benefits of their experience or succumb to the exasperation fueling their rivals.

Gallup polling shows a steady erosion of confidence in government institutions. The last time more Americans thought the country was headed in the right direction rather than the wrong one was January 2004, according to Wall Street Journal/NBC News surveys. In the latest survey, Americans who were pessimistic about the future of the country outnumbered optimists by 2-to-1.

“I have no trust in the government,” said Keith Whigham, a 68-year-old retired insurance-claims adjuster in Greensboro, N.C., who listed Mr. Trump as his top GOP pick in a Journal poll conducted at the end of July. “The little guy has no shot. Everything is rigged for the big shots.”

A year ago, bipartisan majorities said they would replace every single member of Congress, including their own, if they could, according to a Journal poll weeks before the 2014 elections. The same share of voters said they would rather support a first-time candidate over one with experience. Independents were particularly resistant to veteran politicians.

This anti-insider bias is weighing on the once-presumed front-runners, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Democrats and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for Republicans...

Still more.

Jeb Bush is washed up, as far as I can tell. Hillary's looking flaccid as hell, but I think she's got so much of the establishment lined up it's going to be hard for Sanders to really shake loose the detritus. But we'll see. We'll see.

Orange County Beach News That Made National Headlines This Summer

This is really cool.

At the O.C. Register, "Shark selfies, dolphin attack and red crabs: Here are 5 weird things that happened at the beach this summer" (via Twitter):

Summer at the beach is one thing, usually an excellent thing.

But summer at the beach involving wayward sharks, and stinky crabs, and a dolphin jumping into a boat, and lightning - lightning? in July? -- keeping people off the sand?

That’s something only seen during summer at the beach, 2015.

So, today, as summer unofficially signs off, here’s a look at five of the beach events that made us scared, shocked, or even smile...

Keep reading.

PEGIDA Anti-Refugee March in Munich (VIDEO)

I wrote about this movement last December, "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West."

Their warnings seem kind of ominous now.

Via Ruptly:

USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Tested at Top Speed (VIDEO)

At CNN:

Is the American Century Over?

Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye published Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power back in 1991.

It was a something of a response to Paul Kennedy's immensely popular 1987 book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000.

In the end it was Nye, not Kennedy, who turned out to be the more prescient analyst, although he probably didn't make as much money.

So now here comes Nye with a new book on America's enduring hegemony, Is the American Century Over? 


Take a look at some of the material at the sample pages at the link. Gideon Rachman has a review at the Financial Times, "‘Is the American Century Over?’, by Joseph Nye."

I need to pick up a copy as material for my World Politics course. Maybe next month. I just got a shipment of books in the mail yesterday, heh.

Islamic State Reveals It Has Smuggled Thousands of Jihadists Into Europe

Well, that's no surprise.

Over 100,000 refugees made it to Europe in August. Certainly a good number of those are going to be ISIS jihadists. That's the plan.

At Atlas Shrugs, "‘Just wait…’ Islamic State reveals it has smuggled THOUSANDS of jihadis into Europe."

Richard Engel Speaks Too Much Truth to Obama's Failed War on Islamic State

I've seen a number of folks blame George W. Bush for Islamic State, and thus the refugee crisis. But that's one partisan attack that ain't gonna wash.

And NBC's Richard Engel's not buying it either.

On Twitter:

If the US led war on #ISIS was working, people wouldn't be going to such great lengths to escape #Syria & #Iraq http://t.co/Hf5PTFLTge #MTP

— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) September 6, 2015

Britain's 'Unprecedented Assassination' of Two of Its Own Citizens in Syria Drone Attack After Plot to Kill Queen Elizabeth

At the Telegraph UK, "British jihadist killed after plot to kill the Queen."

There's video here, "David Cameron reveals RAF drone strike killed Cardiff jihadi in Syria."

And the inevitable Glenn Greenwald-style "civil liberties" push back on the left. At the Guardian UK, "David Cameron faces scrutiny over drone strikes against Britons in Syria":

Prime minister justifies ‘act of self-defence’ in which UK citizens fighting alongside Isis were targeted by an unmanned aerial drone outside formal conflict.

They're enemy combatants. Kill the fuckers.

Natalie Portman is Wrong, Scarlett Johansson Right on Boycotts of Israel

Well, I used to have Ms. Portman down as a hot neocon, but she's become too much of an Obama-cultist these last few years.

Not so with Scarlett Johansson. She's been a voice of moral clarity on Israel.

See the report at Truth Revolt.

Canadian Tory Candidate Jerry Bance Pees in Homeowner's Coffee Cup, Drops Out of Race (VIDEO)

Heh, I'm not embedding this one.

But you can watch at the CBC, "Tory candidate caught urinating in homeowner's coffee mug."

Such a bizarre story. I can't imagine someone ever doing something like that, but the amazing thing is he was caught on video. And this is part of some reality show sting operation, or something.

More here, "Jerry Bance, Conservative caught peeing in mug, no longer candidate, party says."

Also at Toronto's National Post, "Tories drop two candidates after videos show one peeing in cup, the other making prank calls."