Bella Hadid on the Runway

At the Mirror U.K., "Bella Hadid struts her stuff on the catwalk in sheer nipple-baring design before slipping into sexy silver number: The jet-setting beauty made her mark at the Alexandre Vauthier show on Tuesday."

And at Taxi Driver, "Bella Hadid in See-Through Top on the Runway."

Today's Deals

At Amazon, Today's Deals.

Also, GoPro HERO5 Black.

Here, Honeywell HT-900 TurboForce Air Circulator Fan, Black.

And, AmazonBasics Apple Certified Lightning to USB Cable - 6 Feet (1.8 Meters) - White.

Glad Tall Kitchen Drawstring Trash Bags, 13 Gallon, 90 Count, (Packaging May Vary).

Here, 2 Pounds Unroasted Coffee Beans, Premium Select from RhoadsRoast Coffees (Brazil Cerrado Arabica - Natural 17/18 Screen Coffee Beans, 2 Pounds Unroasted Green Beans).

Kelloggs Frosted Whole Grain Mini Wheats, 70-Ounce.

More, Franklin Sports Field Master Series Fast-Pitch Softball Glove, Right-Hand Throw.

BONUS: Gordon Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor.

VIDEO: George Clooney — Hypocrite (and Complete Idiot)

I'm shaking my head at this.

Actions speak louder than words, and Clooney's proving how wrong leftists are, and how hypocritical is the entire leftist establishment.

At London's Daily Mail, "George Clooney 'planning to move Amal and their twins back to LA amid security concerns over $25m English country manor', claims magazine."

And watch, from Paul Joseph Watson:

New Album from Breakout Los Angeles Stars Haim

This is great.

They harken back to classic rock sounds, and it's all girls, heh.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Review: New album from L.A. breakout stars Haim makes you believe rock might have a future":

In the music video for “Want You Back,” the lead single from their long-awaited new album, the three sisters of Haim saunter down a deserted Ventura Boulevard, air-drumming as they pass the sushi joints and car dealerships of their native San Fernando Valley.

The video’s early morning shoot may have been the most alone time they’ve enjoyed since 2013. That’s when Haim released its hit debut, “Days Are Gone,” which after years of hard work around Los Angeles finally launched this crafty family band to stardom — and to highly visible relationships with a diverse array of pop luminaries.

Taylor Swift befriended the sisters and took them on tour. Calvin Harris put them on a thumping EDM track. Morris Day even recruited the trio to help him perform “Jungle Love” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Everywhere you turned, Haim was the life of someone’s party.

Now the group is back with “Something to Tell You,” which features contributions by what seems like half of L.A.’s musical community, including producers Ariel Rechtshaid and Rostam Batmanglij and first-call instrumentalists such as Greg Leisz and Lenny Castro.

For all the voices in the mix, though, “Something to Tell You,” due Friday, still feels defined by the unique bond that connects singer-guitarist Danielle Haim, bassist Este Haim and guitarist-keyboardist Alana Haim, who grew up playing music in a family band with their parents. The record makes you believe in the image in the “Want You Back” video of three women sharing a vivid private language.

It also makes you believe that rock might have a future (even if it’s only the genre’s past). On “Days Are Gone,” Haim looked back to the polished sound of vintage Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, and here the sisters continue to rely on guitars and the like at a moment when many of their peers have little use for them...

More.

Milo Yiannopoulos: An Establishment Conservative's Guide to the Alt-Right

Following-up, "Who is 'Alt-Right'?"

I'm reminded of the May '16 article by Milo Yiannopoulos, at Breitbart, "An Establishment Conservative's Guide to the Alt-Right." (Still worth a read, for sure.)

Also, at Instapundit, "IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN, I SHALL ONLY BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE: Milo Yiannopoulos has sold 100,000 copies of his new book, Dangerous in a single day," and "PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Milo Yiannopoulos Files $10M Lawsuit Against Simon & Schuster For Pulling His Book."

And check out Milo's book, currently sold out, heh, at Amazon, Dangerous.

Success is the best revenge, as they say.

H.L. Mencken, Prejudices

Years ago my dad bought me a little paperback copy of this book.

I wish I still had it, actually.

Interesting.

At Amazon, H.L. Mencken, Prejudices: The Complete Series.

Who is 'Alt-Right'?

I'm not, that's for sure.

Some of these people are too cozy with legitimate Nazis and white supremacists (here's looking at you, Lauren Southern). (And don't get me going about Cassandra Fairbanks, *eye-roll*.)

But I gotta hand it to 'em in turning the Alinsky tables on the radical left. Seriously, I can't begrudge the alt-right for taking the fight to the enemy. It's long overdue (you can't count on Beltway Republican barnacles to wage ideological warfare).

From Andrew Marantz, at the New Yorker, "The Alt-Right Branding War Has Torn the Movement in Two." (Via Memeorandum and Red State.)

War on Cops

Following-up, "Suspect in Miosotis Familia Execution Had Posted Anti-Cop Diatribes on Social Media — #BlackLivesMatter."

At timely as ever, Heather Mac Donald, at Amazon, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

She's so awesome.

Suspect in Miosotis Familia Execution Had Posted Anti-Cop Diatribes on Social Media — #BlackLivesMatter

The main story's at the New York Times (FWIW), "Police Officer Is Fatally Ambushed at a Bronx Command Post."

Of course, with all the fake news dominating the leftist mass media, folks won't get to the real outrage of this story, which is that suspect hated the police. Where's all the "Black Lives Matter" protests against this abomination? Crickets from the left.

See the Blaze, "Man who allegedly killed NYPD officer Miosotis Familia publicly shared anti-police rant last year":

The man who allegedly killed an New York Police Department officer in an unprovoked attack early Wednesday has a history of negative views about police officers, according to a social media post he wrote last December.

Ex-convict 34-year-old Alexander Bonds posted a video on Facebook last September threatening to “do something” about police officers who he said were killing people.

“I’m not hesitating. It ain’t happening. I wasn’t a b**** in jail and I’m not going to be a b**** in these streets. They don’t f*** with me and I damn sure don’t f*** with them,” Bonds said in a Facebook video last September. “I’m not playing Mr. Officer. I don’t care about 100 police watching this s**t. You see this face or anything, then leave it alone, trust and believe. I got broken ribs for a reason, son. We gonna shake. We gonna do something.

“Don’t think every brother, cousin or uncle you got that get (unintelligible) in jail is because of a Blood or Crip,” Bonds said. “Police be killing and saying an inmate killed them.”

Police say Bonds fatally shot 48-year-old female NYPD officer Miosotis Familia in the head through the passenger window around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday as she sat in a mobile command unit writing in her notebook. The mother of three was a 12-year veteran of the force and was stationed in the area because of a triple shooting that happened in the area in March. Although NYPD patrol cars are equipped with bullet resistant windows, mobile command units do not have the same capabilities.

Authorities say they identified Bonds and caught up to him several blocks from the crime, fatally shooting him after he brandished a revolver at them. Bonds had reportedly had no prior contact with Familia...

And more at CBS News 2 New York:

Dana Loesch Slams 'Fake Feminists' Behind Anti-NRA Women's March (VIDEO)

From Tucker's show last night:

Amy B. Zegart, Spying Blind

At Amazon, Amy B. Zegart, Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11.

Pauline Maier, American Scripture

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence.

Los Angeles Once Teemed with Dozens of Adult Cinemas

Now there's only two porn theaters in town.

At the Los Angeles Times, "The last (porn) picture shows: Once dotted with dozens of adult cinemas, L.A. now has only two":

In 1979, there were an estimated 800 porn theaters across the United States. But video and streaming have rendered them obsolete. The website Cinema Treasures lists fewer than 35 places now operating as adult theaters in the U.S.

In the 1970s, Los Angeles teemed with dozens of porn theaters. Now only two remain: the Studs and the Tiki. They sit at opposite ends of Santa Monica Boulevard — the former in West Hollywood, the latter in East Hollywood, framing the city in an unseen porno-magnetic field. Both beckon with promises of titillation and, in the case of the Studs, a tag line that reads, “Come explore, relax, and take a load off.”

To investigate these last bastions of adult cinema, I enlisted the help of Los Angeles painter Zak Smith.

Smith is a Yale-educated artist who has appeared in more than half a dozen porn films under the name Zak Sabbath. He chronicled his experiences in the 2009 memoir “We Did Porn.” (Original drawings from that project are currently on view at Fabien Castanier Gallery in Culver City.)

He was curious to explore the L.A. theaters, neither of which he had visited.

“They’re vestigial,” he says. “Like with everything else, the old platforms for porn are being phased out. Software adapts fast, hardware adapts slower — and a theater is the ultimate hardware.”

Plus, Smith sees them as symbols of the ways in which sprawling Los Angeles can unwittingly harbor forgotten pockets of history.

“L.A.,” he explains, “is one of those places that always manages to have at least one of something that shouldn’t exist.”

More.

Charles Krauthammer: President Trump's Warsaw Speech Was His Best (VIDEO)

Following-up, "The End of Alliance."

Watch Dr. K's analysis, at Fox News, "Krauthammer: Trump's Warsaw speech was his best, Reaganesque."

Brooklyn Decker in Arizona (VIDEO)

Via Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Robert Kagan, The Return of History

At Amazon, Robert Kagan, The Return of History and the End of Dreams.

See also Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order.

The End of Alliance

President Trump's in Europe and he gave a major address on American foreign relations in Poland today.

See LAT, "Trump frames anti-terrorism fight as a clash of civilizations, defending Western culture against enemies."

There's lots more at Memeorandum, for example, at VOX (safe link), "Trump's speech in Poland sounded like an alt-right manifesto."

And at Free Beacon, "President Trump's Remarkable Warsaw Speech."

More on all of that later.

Meanwhile, of related interest, see Michael Lind, at the National Interest, "Blocpolitik":

THE TRANSACTIONAL nationalism of Donald Trump horrifies the bipartisan foreign-policy establishment, because it suggests the president does not realize that bloc maintenance is not merely one of several goals, but the overriding objective, of U.S. strategy. From the elite perspective, asking whether Americans are getting their money’s worth by protecting Japan, South Korea and rich NATO allies is tantamount to asking for a cost-benefit analysis of federal-government protection of the American South or West Coast. Most members of the foreign-policy elite can no more conceive of South Korea or Poland outside of the U.S. military bloc than they can conceive of Virginia or California outside of the United States of America. Their alarm may be premature, because Trump appears more interested in pressuring American allies to contribute more to U.S.-led alliances than in dissolving them.

Like their American counterparts, the foreign-policy establishments in European nations are not dominated by Bismarckian realists, coldly calculating on a day-to-day basis whether the costs of membership in NATO and EU outweigh the benefits, from the point of view of national interests, narrowly defined. In the campaign that culminated in the vote for Brexit last summer, it was the outsider populists who made arguments in favor of the British (or English) national interests. The British elite was almost entirely opposed. Sometimes they argued on pragmatic grounds that the cost of Brexit would be disastrously high. But it was clear that being part of the European Union, like being part of a trans-Atlantic Euro-American system, was a major part of their personal and professional identities. For most elite Britons, a British departure from the EU could only be thought of as a joke or a nightmare.

The mystery that puzzled Rip Van Winkle in our fable is solved, then. The Soviet threat may have been the original stimulus to the formation of NATO and, indirectly, of an integrated Europe. But the trans-Atlantic Euro-American bloc is so integrated, so held together by ties of military cooperation, economic interdependence and shared values, and so fundamental to the personal identity of elites on both sides of the Atlantic that it endures even in the absence of a credible Russian superpower threat, to which Putin’s limited revisionism cannot be compared.

In other regions, like East, Central and South Asia and the Persian Gulf, there is less deep transnational integration and more traditional arm’s-length alliances. And there is nothing like the common, crusading ideology of Marxism-Leninism in the former Communist bloc or the dominant, if not universal, left-liberal variant of democracy in the contemporary European Union. It is in Asia, rather than in the North Atlantic, that something like the traditional realist account of transactional national diplomacy based on calculations of discrete state interests can still be found.

But even there, in the heartland of twenty-first-century realpolitik, conventional American realists are likely to be refuted. The reason is that the offshore-balancing strategy favored by many realists, with the United States as the “holder of the balance” among multiple great powers, is likely to be rendered irrelevant by the long-term growth of Chinese wealth and power and its consequent regional hegemony.

One alternative to shifting balances of power is provided by more or less fixed geographic spheres of influence. Spheres of influence are disliked by both realists and idealists, including neoconservatives and hawkish neoliberals. But this is a relatively recent development in American history. Before the world wars, the United States channeled the Monroe Doctrine and identified its own sphere of influence. The Open Door doctrine promoted by the United States and Britain more than a century ago was compatible with European and Japanese spheres of influence within the territory of a then powerless and divided China. Although Franklin Roosevelt seems to have envisioned his “Four Policemen”—the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China—policing their regions after World War II, the Cold War quickly became a contest among rival liberal and Communist visions for the loyalties of postcolonial nations and the “captive nations” of Soviet-controlled Europe. In practice, of course, the United States and USSR defended their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Central America. But the idea that the weak neighbors of a regional great power or superpower should defer to the local hegemon fell out of favor. Indeed, in November 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry declared, “The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.”

One interpretation of this would be that the historic Monroe Doctrine had lost its relevance in the post–Cold War period, in which the United States asserted its exclusive sphere of influence as the world’s only superpower, not only in the Americas but also in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and every other region. Today, however, America’s project of converting hegemony within its Cold War bloc into universal hegemony—turning the entire planet into a single sphere of influence, as it were—has collapsed thanks to Chinese and Russian resistance and the war-weariness of the American public. But the U.S. foreign-policy establishment refuses to acknowledge the failure of America’s recent bid for global hegemony, pretending instead that the so-called “liberal world order” is under unjustified assault by China, Russia and perhaps Iran. Because China and Russia are engaged in moderate pushback against the American bloc in Asia and Europe, they are supposed to be threats to liberalism, the rule of law and global democracy. Meanwhile, America’s illiberal and antidemocratic allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, responsible for promoting Salafist jihadist proxies in Syria and elsewhere, are supposed to be understood as states that uphold the liberal world order. This is just propaganda, of a particularly Orwellian kind. What the bipartisan U.S. foreign-policy elite and its allies abroad call the liberal world order is nothing more than the contemporary American bloc, like the “Free World” of the Cold War...

Still lots more, at the link.

Émile Zola, Germinal

I just finished this surprisingly good novel.

At Amazon, Émile Zola, Germinal.

I say "surprisingly good" since the book caught me off guard. It was snappy and felt contemporary, despite being published in 1885.

The main thing is that I was hooked after the first chapter. I can go for a hundred pages or so even if I'm not hooked, but then a novel feels like work. If you're sucked in right off the bat, then it's pure pleasure reading. You don't want to put it down. I love that.

And then, of course, it's a fascinating novel of class struggle (French miners fighting labor exploitation by the "bourgeois" ruling class in the Nord). Indeed, I just picked it up at a used book store by chance, although you'd think leftists would be shouting this one to the moon. (Leftists aren't all that bright, especially the social media trolls, heh).

In any case, it's good summer reading if you're so inclined. And you can check off one of those "classic novels" you've been meaning to read, which is important in my case (since I like to think of myself as a cultured, literate person, heh).

Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776.

#NationalBikiniDay: Jessica Gomes Goes Down Under in Sydney (VIDEO)

Following-up, "National Bikini Day."

Via Sports Illustrated Swimsuit: