Jackie Johnson's High Wind Warning Forecast

High winds through tonight, and we had cooler than average temperatures today.

Here's the lovely Ms. Johnson, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Ted Cruz-John Kasich Alliance Against Donald Trump Quickly Weakens

Well, that didn't take long.

At NYT:

#CruzCrew pic.twitter.com/B6kUWhXUGL

— AdolfJoeBiden™ (@Bidenshairplugs) April 25, 2016

The temporary alliance between Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, formed to deny Donald J. Trump the Republican presidential nomination, was already fraying almost to the point of irrelevance on Monday, only hours after it was announced to great fanfare.

With the pact, the two candidates agreed to cede forthcoming primary contests to each other. Mr. Kasich would, most crucially, stand down in Indiana’s primary on May 3 to give Mr. Cruz a better chance to defeat Mr. Trump there, while Mr. Cruz would leave Oregon and New Mexico to Mr. Kasich. It appeared to be a measure of last resort, but initially it seemed like a breakthrough.

Mr. Cruz trumpeted what he called the “big news” in Indiana, a state that appears pivotal to stopping Mr. Trump from winning a majority of delegates. “John Kasich has decided to pull out of Indiana to give us a head-to-head contest with Donald Trump,” the Texas senator said.

But at his own campaign stop in Philadelphia on Monday, Mr. Kasich tamped down Mr. Cruz’s triumphalism. Voters in Indiana, Mr. Kasich said, “ought to vote for me,” even if he would not be campaigning publicly there. He added, “I don’t see this as any big deal.”

Under the best of circumstances, the arrangement between Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich would seem to be a long shot — more of an expedient to stop Mr. Trump from taking a big step toward winning the nomination next week in Indiana than a permanent joining of forces...

More.

Cuckservatives united, lol.

Hot Happy Monday Blogging

At the Hostages, "MMM 221." (Monday morning workout babe blogging.)

Also, at Egotastic!, "Victoria's Secret Angel Wet Nymphs for Vogue Spain," and "Sara Sampaio for Vogue Spain."

American Amnesia

This looks interesting. Not conservative so much, but interesting nevertheless.

From Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper.

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Step Up Attacks

The campaign's taking on the feel of a general election matchup.

From Cathleen Decker, at LAT, "Trump and Clinton joust in Pennsylvania as underdogs nip at their heels":

Campaigns split: No more Dem and Rep; instead the division is frontrunners + underdogs https://t.co/9AwtpZGqSy

— Cathleen Decker (@cathleendecker) April 25, 2016

As Tuesday's quintuple primaries near, the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns appear to be moving in tandem for the first time.

Front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are targeting each other with an eye to November's general election and are mostly ignoring their party challengers. Behind them, their rivals are still aiming at the front-runners in a desperate effort to gain ground before the primary season spirals further out of their control.

Polls suggest that voters in Pennsylvania, the biggest of the Tuesday primaries, are lining up behind Clinton and Trump much as voters in New York did last week — in big numbers.

Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republicans Ted Cruz and John Kasich have given no sign they intend to leave the race before the final primaries in June. But losses in Pennsylvania and the four other Tuesday primaries would be another major blow to the underdog candidates, both in momentum lost and in the delegates each needs to rebound.

"They are struggling to get a narrative that trumps the notion that the other two are inevitable," said longtime Pennsylvania pollster G. Terry Madonna, whose surveys for Franklin and Marshall College have Clinton and Trump holding double-digit leads in Pennsylvania.

The contest here has been an echo of the national race. Clinton, who has ties to the state dating to childhood, has campaigned as if she was running for mayor with an excruciatingly local pitch. Sanders, with his more nationalized message, has reveled in the giant, college-area rallies that have dominated his campaign everywhere...

More.

Deal of the Day: Ivation Electric Pressure Washer with Power Hose Nozzle Gun

At Amazon, Ivation Electric Pressure Washer 2200 PSI 1.8 GPM with Power Hose Nozzle Gun and Turbo Wand, All Parts Included, W/ Built in Soap Dispenser.

Plus, Save on Silhouette DIY Machines. More, Silhouette Cameo - Starter Bundle.

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Also, from Jon A. Shields and Joshua M. Dunn Sr., Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University.

More, David Horowitz, One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy.

And, Kirsten Powers, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.

BONUS: Stuart Taylor, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.

U.S. Army Launches Investigation Into Free-Falling Humvees, Crashing to the Ground (VIDEO)

Definitely wild.

At USA Today, "Humvees dropped from sky smash to bits; Army investigating":

The 173rd Airborne Brigade is investigating what went wrong during an airborne drop that resulted in three Humvees free-falling to their destruction, as depicted in a widely-shared online video.

On April 11, the Army conducted a heavy drop and personnel airborne operation as part of exercise Saber Junction 16 at Hohenfels training area in Germany. About 150 supply bundles, vehicles, communications equipment and indirect weapons systems were dropped, according to Army spokesman Maj. Juan Martinez. But three Humvees slipped from their rigging as their parachutes deployed, plummeting hundreds of feet to the earth. Martinez said no one was hurt.

"The specific malfunctions that occurred on this day are under investigation," Martinez said in an email to Army Times. "There were multiple rehearsals and inspections of the equipment prior to mission execution. We cannot speculate on what went wrong until the investigation is complete."

Martinez also hinted at the severity of the issue, writing in a subsequent email that "this investigation will receive the highest priority."

The video, viewed more than 1 million times since U.S. Army W.T.F! moments posted it to Facebook, shows a couple of planes pass and drop their cargo without incident. The third plane's first item, one of the ill-fated vehicles, has its parachute deploy initially. But a few seconds after it leaves the aircraft, it slips free and falls off its platform.

Someone standing near the camera seems to instantly recognize what is happening, yelling "Ooo, Yeah! Yes!" as it slips. The person in the video laughs as the free-falling Humvee crashes into the ground and kicks up a cloud of smoke...

I've Finished Nicholas Stargardt's, The German War

It took me a little longer than I'd have liked, but I've finished Stargardt's masterful tome, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945.

It's a phenomenal work using methods of the new social history, and applied to the Nazi regime it produces some pretty astounding revelations. Folks might read the review from MacGregor Knox, at WSJ, "The Reich Mind."

Impressive all around.

Austria's (Nationalist) Freedom Party Wins Handily in First Round of Presidential Election Vote (VIDEO)

Yes, the country's common sense Freedom Party is going to be smeared as "far-right" all the way up to the second round of voting, and don't be surprised to see leftist parties form alliances with so-called centrist "Christian Democrats" to block the election of Norbert Hofer. That's basically what happened in the recent French regional elections, with leftist and so-called center-right parties working together to stop Marine Le Pen's National Front.

At the Local, "FPÖ's Hofer wins 36.7% of vote, runoff likely":

Austria's anti-immigration far-right triumphed on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election, with candidates from the two governing parties failing to even make it into a May 22 runoff.

Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) won 36.7 of the vote, followed by Alexander van der Bellen backed by the Greens on 19.7 percent and independent candidate Irmgard Griss on 18.8 percent, projections showed.

From the governing coalition, Rudolf Hundstorfer from the Social Democrats (SPÖ) came joint fourth with just 11.2 percent, level with Andreas Khol from the People's Party (ÖVP).

The only candidate who fared worse than the main parties' candidates was Richard Lugner, an 83-year-old construction magnate and socialite married to a former Playboy model 57 years his junior, who won 2.3 percent.

The result, if confirmed, means that for the first time since 1945, Austria will not have a president backed by either the SPÖ or ÖVP.

Support for the two parties has been sliding for years and in the last general election in 2013 they only just garnered enough support to re-form Chancellor Werner Faymann's "grand coalition".

Austria also no longer has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union and Faymann's coalition, in power since 2008, has bickered over structural reforms.

The next general election is due in 2018. The FPÖ is currently leading national opinion polls with more than 30 percent of voter intentions, boosted by Europe's migrant crisis.

"This is the beginning of a new political era," FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache said after what constitutes the best-ever result at federal level for the former party of the late, SS-admiring Joerg Haider...

More.

Yeah, progressives used to smear Jörg Haider as a Nazi back in the day, but he's having the last laugh from the grave now.

And here's the obligatory "far-right" headline at London's far-left Guardian, "Austrian far-right party wins first round of presidential election."

At the video above, notice how the screen-grab has Hofer raising his hand as in a Nazi salute - "Heil Hitler!"

You know, leftist fearmongering will only work so long. Across Europe you're seeing the nationalist backlash against the invasion of refu-jihadists and rape-fugees. Any time now a nationalist party is going to come to power in one of the leading European democracies, and there's going to be reckoning. Shoot, this could happen in Germany itself, the way Angela Merkel keeps doubling down on national surrender and suicide.

Deal of the Day: NordicTrack C 990 Treadmill

At Amazon, NordicTrack C 990 Treadmill: Stay in Control of your workout with a 7-Inch web-enabled touchscreen. Quickly view your speed, time, distance, calories burned, heart rate, incline, and decline on the large, easy-to-read display.

More, LifeStraw Personal Water Filter.

Plus, BLACK+DECKER MTC220 12-Inch Lithium Cordless 3-in-1 Trimmer/Edger and Mower, 20-volt (Battery-Powered).

And from Roger Kimball, Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education.

More, from Kim R. Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

Michael Walsh, The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West.

And Barry Rubin, Silent Revolution: How the Left Rose to Political Power and Cultural Dominance.

Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties.

BONUS: From Daniel Flynn, Why the Left Hates America: Exposing the Lies That Have Obscured Our Nation's Greatness.

Playboy Magazine: A First Look at Our April 2016 Cover with French Model Camille Rowe (VIDEO)

At Playboy, "A Visual Treat: Photos from Miss April 2016 Camille Rowe’s Pictorial." (More here.)

And watch, "Miss April 2016 Camille Rowe Looks Right at Home in Her Bunny Suit."

'Game of Thrones' Star Sophie Turner Attempts to Master Archery (VIDEO)

The new "Games of Thrones" season debuts tonight.

Meanwhile, via GQ, "Watch Sansa Stark Discover Her Inner Katniss Everdeen.

BONUS: "Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones Plays a Game of Wits (VIDEO)."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Theo's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – From Russia With Love."

Beware of Crazy Women in the Social Media Age

At the Other McCain, "Beware of Sex in the Social Media Age (Because the Internet Is Forever)":

So here we have Rosie, telling the world that she lives in North East Bedfordshire, where she is suffering from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and — oh, by the way — she has vaginismus and was (allegedly) raped by Jason Lee Weight in June 2014.

Yeah, let’s just put that on the Internet, and also publish photos of yourself topless, Rosie. Because what could possibly go wrong?

Here’s a word parents need to teach their kids: “Crazy.”

What part of “crazy” do I need to explain here? The Internet is forever, boys and girls. Go ask former Rep. Anthony Weiner what he was thinking before he started sending photos of his penis to women. My old buddy Andrew Breitbart turned that into the biggest political story of 2011, and you might have thought former Rep. Anthony Weiner would have learned his lesson, but no, he got caught again in 2013 having some kind of perverted Internet fling with a sleazy admirer named Sydney Leathers.

My teenage sons got an earful of warnings after that. While I was reporting the breaking developments in the second WeinerGate scandal, it dawned on me that kids (and obviously, too many adults who should know better) are simply not thinking before they hit the “send” button on their text messages and emails. They are not thinking about the possible consequences of clicking the “publish” button on their social media accounts. Nor are people thinking about what they are doing in the real world in an age where everybody’s cellphone has a video camera, where anything a guy does in his dating relationships may become the subject of an online rant by an angry ex-girlfriend, where a guy meets a girl at a party and has what seems to him a consensual hookup only to discover, nearly two years later, that she’s telling the world that he’s a rapist.

Rosie’s account of that night is a classic “he-said/she-said” situation. Her story of that (allegedly) “horrific” June 2014 encounter seems entirely plausible, and Jason Lee Weight’s (alleged) behavior is indefensible. Rosie says she filed a report with police “a long time after” this encounter, but a lack of evidence made prosecution impossible. Because I am not a prosecutor or a detective or any sort of “activist,” however, the question of Jason Lee Weight’s guilt or innocence is not actually relevant to my point. Discussing this allegation in terms of “rape culture” is above my pay grade. What I am trying to do here, as a professional journalist, is to convey the reality of what sex means in the social media age. And what I am also trying to do, as a father of six, the youngest three of whom are teenagers, is to explain to parents, teachers and other responsible adults why young people must be warned very strongly about these dangers.

This is not 1977, the year I graduated high school. This is not 1983, the year I graduated college. It’s not 1989, the year I got married. Heck, it’s not even 2008, the year I left The Washington Times and embarked on a career as a freelance correspondent and blogger. Social media has exploded during the past decade, technology has advanced to the point where rapists are livestreaming their rapes on the Internet, where mass murderers publish their “manifestos” online before they commit their deadly rampages. What does this mean for “casual sex”? To quote the recently departed Prince: “Party over. Oops! Out of time.”

Welcome to 2016, boys and girls. There is no such thing as “privacy.”

Keep reading.

Setbacks Hobble U.S. Military Efforts in Iraq

Following-up from previously, "The Inherent Fallacy of Believing We Can Beat the Islamic State Without U.S. Ground Troops."

At the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. faces an uphill effort in helping build an Iraqi force that can retake Mosul":

As machine guns rattled Thursday from a nearby firing range, Iraqi recruits at this dusty base outside Baghdad trained on tactics, radios, firing mortars and tanks before a bevy of visiting Pentagon brass.

But off to the side, their trainers, mostly from Spain and Portugal, said the soldiers often show up late for training courses or don't show up at all.

"The last group we had here was a complete disaster," said Spanish army Maj. Ignacio "Nacho" Arias. "They would come and go without permission."

The troubles at this training base reflect broader difficulties in building an Iraqi ground force capable of pushing entrenched Islamic State fighters out of Mosul, the militants' self-declared capital in Iraq, a priority for the White House and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi's government.

The Pentagon announced in March 2015 that an Iraqi offensive on the strategic city was all but imminent. But those ambitious plans were repeatedly shelved as Iraqi troops struggled to push the militants out of smaller cities and towns.

Iraqi forces finally launched their long-delayed assault toward Mosul last month. It quickly stalled.

The sluggish pace has frustrated U.S. commanders and White House officials, who had hoped to recapture the heavily defended northern city and deal a decisive blow to the militants before President Obama leaves office in January.

Obama made it clear this week that he isn't very optimistic.

"My expectation is that by the end of the year, we will have created the conditions whereby Mosul will eventually fall," he said Monday in an interview with CBS News.

"We're not doing the fighting ourselves, but when we provide training, when we provide special forces who are backing them up, when we are gaining intelligence … what we've seen is we can continually tighten the noose," he added...

Actually, no.

We're not going to tighten the noose unless the U.S. commits to a substantially larger U.S. ground presence, and that's not likely to happen under this administration, and it might not happen under the next one.

But continue reading.

The Inherent Fallacy of Believing We Can Beat the Islamic State Without U.S. Ground Troops

From Kori Schake, at Foreign Policy, "No one — not Obama, Clinton, Trump, or Cruz — will dare to admit the obvious: We’re going to need to put boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria":

On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of 217 more troops to Iraq, as part of the fight against the Islamic State. As Secretary of Defense Ash Carter explained: “This will put Americans closer to the action.” Washington will also send Apache helicopters to Iraqi forces and pay $415 million in salaries for Kurdish troops and other “military needs” in the runup to retaking Mosul.

If you think this counts as getting tough in the fight against radical jihadis who have unsettled the Middle East and brought violence to the heart of Europe, you’re deluding yourself. Obama’s strategy for fighting the Islamic State is half-measures, at best: contributing U.S. military force at the margins of efforts by those most directly affected with loss of territory. The president prides himself on a minimalist approach, doing just about as much for Iraqi forces or the Syrian rebels as they could do for themselves. It amounts to an argument that he is preventing the moral hazard of other countries relying on the United States for their security. But that approach treats as costless two very important elements in fighting the Islamic State: confidence and time.

One of the emptiest canards in warfare is “there is no military solution.” Unless you fight to complete extermination, war always involves convincing your adversary to stop fighting. That is, to cede their political goals rather than continue using military force to attain them. Usually, that requires doing some fighting. Of course, adversaries tend not to give up if they think they’re winning or could win — which is why soldiers like the Powell Doctrine of committing large forces in order to demonstrate your political will to win.

It’s also why Obama’s incremental commitment of small numbers of troops — 300 advisors here, a specialized targeting team there — is so ineffective. It conveys the limits of Washington’s willingness to fight. The Islamic State, Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei all understand those limits and are acting accordingly. America’s allies get the message now, too, especially after the president wrote off Iraq and fought the war in Afghanistan halfheartedly. They will not step forward and commit the ground troops necessitated by Obama’s approach because they lack the confidence that Washington will see this difficult fight through...

A great piece.

Keep reading.

Hailey Clauson Answers Fast, Funny, and Provocative Questions While on Location in Beautiful Turks and Caicos (VIDEO)

She's so lovely.

Watch, at Sports Illustrated, SI Swimsuit Rapid Fire Questions Starring Cover Model Hailey Clauson."

At the click through, "Hailey Clauson In Nothing But Body Paint - Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2015 (VIDEO)."

Deal of the Day: 55% Off Select MonsterRax Overhead Garage Storage Racks

These are cool racks.

At Amazon, MonsterRAX Overhead Heavy Duty Garage Storage Rack , White, 4' x 8'/24". Also, MonsterRAX - 2x8 Overhead Garage Storage Rack (24"-45").

More, Up to 40% Off Select Pebble Smartwatches. Also, Pebble Time Round 14mm Smartwatch for Apple/Android Devices - Silver/Stone.

And, Popular Kindle Best Sellers.

Plus, from Ann Coulter, ¡Adios, America! The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole. (And, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.)

Still more, from Victor Davis Hanson, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming, and The Decline and Fall of California: From Decadence to Destruction (Kindle Edition).

BONUS: Mark Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal.

It's Nice to Take a Day

A day off from politics.

From Mister H on Twitter:

It's nice to take a day from politics & news, in general, to see the world isn't as bad as it sometimes seems.

— Mister H (@ATHudd) April 23, 2016

And also, at Althouse, "Redbud, bluebell."

Why China Won't Overtake the United States

Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth have a great new scholarly article out at International Security, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in the Twenty-First Century: China’s Rise and the Fate of America’s Global Position."

And the authors have a shorter version for policymakers and general readers, at Foreign Affairs, "The Once and Future Superpower":

In forecasts of China’s future power position, much has been made of the country’s pressing domestic challenges: its slowing economy, polluted environment, widespread corruption, perilous financial markets, nonexistent social safety net, rapidly aging population, and restive middle class. But as harmful as these problems are, China’s true Achilles’ heel on the world stage is something else: its low level of technological expertise compared with the United States’. Relative to past rising powers, China has a much wider technological gap to close with the leading power. China may export container after container of high-tech goods, but in a world of globalized production, that doesn’t reveal much. Half of all Chinese exports consist of what economists call “processing trade,” meaning that parts are imported into China for assembly and then exported afterward. And the vast majority of these Chinese exports are directed not by Chinese firms but by corporations from more developed countries.

When looking at measures of technological prowess that better reflect the national origin of the expertise, China’s true position becomes clear. World Bank data on payments for the use of intellectual property, for example, indicate that the United States is far and away the leading source of innovative technologies, boasting $128 billion in receipts in 2013—more than four times as much as the country in second place, Japan. China, by contrast, imports technologies on a massive scale yet received less than $1 billion in receipts in 2013 for the use of its intellectual property. Another good indicator of the technological gap is the number of so-called triadic patents, those registered in the United States, Europe, and Japan. In 2012, nearly 14,000 such patents originated in the United States, compared with just under 2,000 in China. The distribution of highly influential articles in science and engineering—those in the top one percent of citations, as measured by the National Science Foundation—tells the same story, with the United States accounting for almost half of these articles, more than eight times China’s share. So does the breakdown of Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine. Since 1990, 114 have gone to U.S.-based researchers. China-based researchers have received two.

Precisely because the Chinese economy is so unlike the U.S. economy, the measure fueling expectations of a power shift, GDP, greatly underestimates the true economic gap between the two countries. For one thing, the immense destruction that China is now wreaking on its environment counts favorably toward its GDP, even though it will reduce economic capacity over time by shortening life spans and raising cleanup and health-care costs. For another thing, GDP was originally designed to measure mid-twentieth-century manufacturing economies, and so the more knowledge-based and global­ized a country’s production is, the more its GDP underestimates its economy’s true size.

A new statistic developed by the UN suggests the degree to which GDP inflates China’s relative power. Called “inclusive wealth,” this measure represents economists’ most systematic effort to date to calculate a state’s wealth. As a UN report explained, it counts a country’s stock of assets in three areas: “(i) manufactured capital (roads, buildings, machines, and equipment), (ii) human capital (skills, education, health), and (iii) natural capital (sub-soil resources, ecosystems, the atmosphere).” Added up, the United States’ inclusive wealth comes to almost $144 trillion—4.5 times China’s $32 trillion.

The true size of China’s economy relative to the United States’ may lie somewhere in between the numbers provided by GDP and inclusive wealth, and admittedly, the latter measure has yet to receive the same level of scrutiny as GDP. The problem with GDP, however, is that it measures a flow (typically, the value of goods and services produced in a year), whereas inclusive wealth measures a stock. As The Economist put it, “Gauging an economy by its GDP is like judging a company by its quarterly profits, without ever peeking at its balance-sheet.” Because inclusive wealth measures the pool of resources a government can conceivably draw on to achieve its strategic objectives, it is the more useful metric when thinking about geopolitical competition.

But no matter how one compares the size of the U.S. and Chinese economies, it is clear that the United States is far more capable of converting its resources into military might. In the past, rising states had levels of technological prowess similar to those of leading ones. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, the United States didn’t lag far behind the United Kingdom in terms of technology, nor did Germany lag far behind the erstwhile Allies during the interwar years, nor was the Soviet Union backward technologically compared with the United States during the early Cold War. This meant that when these challengers rose economically, they could soon mount a serious military challenge to the dominant power. China’s relative technological backwardness today, however, means that even if its economy continues to gain ground, it will not be easy for it to catch up militarily and become a true global strategic peer, as opposed to a merely a major player in its own neighborhood...

More.