'Tik Tok' on the Clock ... But the Party Don't Stop...

From Ann Powers' review of Ke$ha's new album, at the Los Angeles Times, "Ke$ha is a Wisecracking 'Animal'":

Ke$ha comes on like a well-worn worst nightmare, her manicure chewed and her morals thoroughly compromised. The 22-year-old music industry brat -- her mom's a songwriter who raised her family in studios and dives from Los Angeles to Nashville -- has irritated some critics by reinvigorating the Girls Gone Wild sexual recklessness of a few years back, but really her act reaches much further.

She's a classic screwball blond, brassy like Jean Harlow and saucy like Mae West. Hating Ke$ha for kicking pretty boys to the curb and vomiting in the closet of some rich kid whose party she crashed (allegedly, Paris Hilton) is like saying West was too forward when she told Cary Grant to come up and see her sometime.

What makes Ke$ha interesting, though, isn't the substance of her act. It's the way she and her producers -- primarily her mentor, hitmaker Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald -- refashion the screwball heroine role to suit a new era of aggressive superficiality and libertine self-empowerment.

The main lyrical idea behind "Animal" -- that a woman behaving like a sexist, inconsiderate male oaf turns the tables in a way that shocks but ultimately leads to freedom -- is neither new nor particularly useful. But unlike many of the pop ingénues who've tried on this attitude, Ke$ha offers a thoroughly fleshed-out character to embrace or despise.

Her total commitment to the deliberately stupid script "Animal" provides (one that she and her mother, who co-wrote several songs, helped devise) makes it work.

Part juvenile delinquent, part wisecracking dame, Ke$ha pulls the rug out from under the overly proper. She finds power in the modernizing toys of her time, enticing boys with drunken text messages and juicing her libido with the hottest dance-floor beats. If some of her vices, like Jack Daniel's and guys who look like Mick Jagger, both of which she mentions in her hit single "TiK ToK," are cutely antiquated, she herself is as thoroughly of this moment as is her doppelgänger, Taylor Swift.

Not being hip, I checked with my 14 year-old, and his eyes lit up instantly when asked about Ke$ha. "She's on my iPod," he said.

Well, she's 22, so perhaps she'll be good for some babe-blogging down the road as well. Here's the commercial video of "Tik Tok":

Michael Yon: 'No Country Has Ever Treated Me So Badly'

Michael Yon was handcuffed at Seattle-Tacoma airport today for refusing to report in his annual income to border control officers. From Yon's Twitter:

When they handcuffed me, I said that no country has ever treated me so badly. Not China. Not Vietnam. Not Afghanistan. Definitely not Singapore or India or Nepal or Germany, not Brunei, not Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Kuwait or Qatar or United Arab Emirates. No county has treated me with the disrespect can that can be expected from our border bullies.

It's TSA folks who requested the income verification. But it was the Canadian Border Patrol who handcuffed him. Of course, just yesterday Yon hammered the Obama administration's DHS, "Border Bullies," so there's no doubt about Yon's "no country" comment. (And TSA's stopping Yon for income verification but giving the pass to British-radicalized Nigerian terrorists - now that's a problem.)

There's an interview at Big Government, "EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Military Blogger Michael Yon Detained, Handcuffed by TSA in Seattle Airport." (Via Memeorandum.)

But see Andrew Breitbart's interview with Hannity earlier tonight, "From Gateway Pundit." Especially good is Breitbart's discussion of Michael Yon:

Yemen Hurtling Toward Disaster

From Richard Fontaine and Andrew Exum:

The Nigerian Islamist who allegedly attempted to detonate a bomb on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has brought Yemen once again into the spotlight as a breeding ground for terrorists. Abdulmutallab is thought to have trained with Yemen's Al Qaeda affiliate, and the group has claimed credit for the failed attack.

Yemen has long been a place of concern. Last month, before the attempted airliner bombing, the United States facilitated a missile attack against two suspected Al Qaeda strongholds in Yemen. And over the weekend, the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital city of Sana was closed because of security concerns.

But terrorism is just one of the threats the deteriorating situation in Yemen poses to U.S. interests.

Over the last few years, Yemen has been hurtling toward a disaster that could dramatically harm the interests of both the United States and its regional partners. An active insurgency in the north, a separatist movement in the south and a resurgent Al Qaeda franchise inside its borders present the Yemeni government with difficult short-term challenges. And managing the country's longer-term problems is likely to prove even tougher.

Yemen's economy depends heavily on oil production, and its government receives the vast majority of its revenue from oil taxes. Yet analysts predict that the country's petroleum output, which has declined over the last seven years, will fall to zero by 2017. The government has done little to plan for its post-oil future. Yemen's population, already the poorest on the Arabian peninsula and with an unemployment rate of 35%, is expected to double by 2035. An incredible 45% of Yemen's population is under the age of 15. These trends will exacerbate large and growing environmental problems, including the exhaustion of Yemen's groundwater resources. Given that a full 90% of the country's water is used for agriculture, this trend portends disaster.

This confluence of political, ideological, economic and environmental forces will render Yemen a fertile ground for the training and recruitment of Islamist militant groups for the foreseeable future. More than 100 Yemenis have been incarcerated in Guantanamo since 2002. And today, Internet message boards linked to Al Qaeda encourage fighters from across the Islamic world to flock to Yemen. The country is home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has carried out attacks in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

RELATED: From Jules Crittenden, "Terror’s War On Us."

Northrop Grumman Relocating to Washington, D.C.

From the Los Angeles Times, "Northrop Grumman Moving Headquarters From L.A. to Washington, D.C., Area":

In a blow to Southern California, Northrop Grumman Corp. said it would relocate its headquarters from Los Angeles -- leaving the region that gave birth to the aerospace industry without a single major military contractor based here.

The company said it would move its corporate staff to the Washington, D.C., area by summer 2011 to be closer to its key customer, the U.S. government.

Northrop's announcement was seen as a bitter pill for the much-battered regional economy, which has suffered a series of high-profile corporate defections in recent years.

"This is very bad news, a crummy way to get 2010 started," said economist Jack Kyser of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "It's a prestige type of thing. Whenever a metro area loses a corporate headquarters, it smarts. We can't forget."

Northrop joins a parade of other companies that have left in recent years, including Hilton Hotels Corp. of Beverly Hills, Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Orange County's Fluor Corp. and Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego.

The move came on the first working day for West Virginia native Wesley G. Bush, who succeeded longtime Chief Executive Ronald D. Sugar, who grew up in South Los Angeles and graduated from UCLA.

"This is an important move for the company, and it's one that we believe will improve the effectiveness in serving the nation and our customers," Bush said in his first public statement as the company's chief executive. "The proximity to Washington enables us to be a more integrated part of the federal process."

By relocating, Northrop brings its top executives closer to the nation's decision makers on Capitol Hill, as well as U.S. military and intelligence customers, Bush said. The Pentagon is its largest customer. The company develops and makes a variety of products, including unmanned aircraft, satellites and nuclear submarines.

All told, Northrop is moving about 300 people from its corporate office in Century City.

Although the company is shifting some of its administrative staff, California will remain a significant location for Northrop operations, especially in research, development and manufacturing, Bush said. He noted that a quarter of Northrop's worldwide workforce -- about 30,000 employees -- is in California, the vast majority in the Southland.

"We have been here, and will continue to be here, for a long time," Bush said, noting that the company assembles a major component for the F/A-18 fighter jet in El Segundo, makes satellites in Redondo Beach, and develops robotic planes in Rancho Bernardo and Palmdale.

Still, Northrop will now lose its distinction as the last major aerospace firm based in Southern California -- once home to many of the nation's largest military contractors, including Lockheed Corp., General Dynamics Corp. and Rockwell International.

"We were the capital of the aerospace industry prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union," Chapman University economist Esmael Adibi said. "We had major firms in Southern California, with operations across different counties. But slowly, we are no longer an important player in that segment."

Stories like this area always of great interest to me. When my parents moved back to California in the 1960s (from Europe, where my dad was a civilian service officer in the U.S. Army), we relocated to Torrance, in the South Bay area of L.A. County. Oil refineries, aerospace, and manufacturing were the big industries, along with Hollywood and the television industry. I remember in the early 1990s the defense downsizing, along with the housing bust of those years, sent the local economy into a massive tailspin. And nowadays, as a professor at Long Beach City College, my school's literally sitting adjacent to the Boeing manufacturing plant where the Boeing 717 commerical jetliner was built until 2006. (Also, "Boeing Moves to Close Plant.") On the military procurement side, Congress just authorized ten new Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport planes, which are built on the other side of the Long Beach Airport. There's a story here, "Boeing C-17, Long Beach Jobs Get Final OK."

Daley Babe Hotness

Notice that's "Daley" babe hotness, as in the Daley Gator's blog. The proprietor there, Gatordoug, is getting right up there with Theo Spark as a go-to guy for your babelicioius blogging! A fine example is today's DaleyGator DaleyBabe, a beautiful blonde in an orange bikini! Whoo-hoo!

Robert Stacy McCain in Southern California!

I think I mentioned it last week, and here we go!

Robert Stacy McCain is here in Southern California to cover the BCS championship game. In fact, he's with me in my kitchen at this moment:

He just wrote up an entry for the American Spectator, "'Proto-Fascist Love of Violence'." It turns out that Smitty called to let us know that Andrew Sullivan smeard Robert tonight as a "proto-fascist." Here's a Google link only, "Proto-Fascism On The American Right." Robert has the full details at his post:

Check over at The Other McCain as well for updates.

I'll be blogging off and on tomorrow. Robert and I will be heading over to Orange Coast College for the Crimson Tide's afternoon practice session. It could be rough sledding, however. The news has it that the University of Alabama football team is keeping a super tight lid on security, and they've even erected a fence around the college's trainging facility. But we'll be heading over there no matter what. Robert's got to get close to the team for some first-hand information for his championship game reporting.

Tune in here for some plain old conservative blog reporting, in any case. Having Robert around is kinda like being in the right-wing hothouse!

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UPDATE: Robert's got a report up on the day's goings-on. See, "Fear and Loathing in Orange County."

Peters Canyon Regional Park: First Hike, 2010

Okay, I'm finally getting the chance to sit down for a while and put up the post I promised last night. I went out for a hike yesterday at Peters Canyon Regional Park, in the hills of North Orange. Below is my basic gear. I picked up a new pair of Hi-Tec hiking boots (the tag's still on the right boot there). You might notice as well that little locking-blade pocket knife I carry, along with the hiking pole and traffic cop's whistle. Both for safety. Peter's Canyon is a wilderness area with mountain lions and other wildlife. I'm not carrying a gun, so between the knife and the hiking pole perhaps I'll be able to fight off a lion's attack. A mountain lion killed a cyclist in 2004, about 10 miles south of Peters Canyon, at Whiting Ranch in Trabuco Canyon.

I like walking with the hiking pole, in any case. I've got the whistle mainly so I can call for help if I become injured in a fall, or if some damned posse of local illegal immigrant vatos happens to come along (probably not up here at the park, but this is outback, so every little bit helps). I've got the phone too. I normally will take along some GORP instead of the Nature Valley bars, just in case I get little weak for energy. I stuff everything in the fanny pack. Not shown are sunscreen and sunglasses. And I'll start taking the camera with me on all hikes, since there's lots to see, and this is a horse trail as well has hiking, running, and cycling.

Here's the sign at the park entrance. Check the map at the second image down. I'm standing at the top of the red "parking" icon:

This shot is looking south along the start of the blue line to the left of the parking icon at the map. I'll meet up at the Lakeview Trail in five minutes or so:

Okay, here I'm turning back right on the map, heading east. There are a couple of inclines. This is the first one. That's actually a pair of park rangers hiking around the park, checking out fencing and other things. The hills are moderately strenuous:

Here's the scenic view resting area at the top of the two hills I just climbed. I'm taking the picture at the "photograph" icon at the map. Looking north or a bit northeast, you can see Mt. Baldy in the distance - hard to tell here, but it's still snowcapped from the late December storm we had. I stop to rest for a few minutes and drink water. My favorite time to hike Peters Canyon is in November after the Santa Ana winds have swept away all the clouds and smog, the earlier in the morning the better. It's a heavenly peak. Interestingly, the reservior is the lowest I've seen it. But we haven't had our normal rain cycle yet, and I expect it will fill back up to the higher shoreline levels you can see at left. Lots of birds come to feed and rest along the waterfront. It's quiet nature here:

Starting back up again, I'm now descending down the back side of the peak. There's a cactus trail here and you have to listen for the mountain bikers, 'cause they like to whip down this trail at full speed:

Now I'm hiking the long stretch heading to the south of the park, at Lower Canyon Trail on the map. It's probably just over a mile to the south entrance. I stopped to take a photo of some guys installing solar panels on a new ranch house just on the other side of the creek that runs alongside:

Okay, I'm at the south entrance. I use the restroom here and take a break for a couple of minutes. While resting I read the information billboards posted at the shade-stand. You can see the trail here in the background looking north. Lots of warning signs for dangers from wild animals. We have rattlers in the woods here:

If you check the map back up top, I'm now heading up the trail at the blue line at bottom. See the trees here? There's a brief hike through a thick eucalyptus grove, and here's some more warning signs:

About fifteen minutes later I come to a rest stop at the top of one of the larger inclines. (This is about halfway back up the East Ridge View Trail on the map.) These rests are the biggest payoffs of the hike. I'm looking southwest, out over the Irvine Valley toward Newport Beach and the Pacific Ocean. It's about 4:30pm. With the clouds last night we had a dramatic reddish-purple sunset. We can see the beginning of it here. I did some pushups and replenished fluids. I dwell for a while to take in all the views, saying hello to passing hikers, bikers, and runners:

I didn't tackle the steepest hill at the park yesterday. You can see a picture here. In one or two more hikes, I'll start also taking the last peak trail, and my rests will be much shorter. I was fairly winded on a couple of the steeper inclines yesterday. And I'm sore. My lower back area, gluteous maximus, and inner quadriceps got big workouts. Calves are a little sore as well, but not bad. Plus, my pecs and lats feel like I was benchpressing yesterday, so I'm out of shape on the pushups.

Ideally, I'll have time to go on this hike once a week. On top of that I can walk my neighborhood on most days. When I'm in good shape I walk for hours if I have time. It's the best stressbuster. Later, I'll do some running and more weigthtraining. I weighed 209 after my doctor's appointment in December. My ideal weight is 185. But for now I'm more interested in the cardiovascular workouts and restoring my overall body strength. I'll also post photos of myself. Didn't feel like it yesterday, but tune in for some DD hotness shots throughout the year!

I'll update with more information on this hike, as well as some additional hikes in the Southern California area. 2010's going to be a big year for my American Power workouts!

From the Comments

Well, things are getting back to normal business (and busy-ness) after the long holiday break. But my blogging schedule has been thrown off. I'm going to try to get my New Year's hiking post up this morning or early afternoon. But I've got a dental appointment at 11:00, and I've got to get my little guy ready for school right now. I haven't even read the paper yet, or checked the headlines at Memeorandum or RealClearPolitics.

I did see the comments some readers have left at the blog, anonymous comments, or pseudonymous in the case of the second one. The first one's attacking me for my alleged hypocrisy:

If u are married with children - do you think it is appropriate to go around talking about how hot other women are all the time? Your blog is full of drooling over how hot women on TV are. Why don't you stop fawning over actors and fake celebrities and pay more attention to reality. Where are your "Christian" morals? Or are you just a typical male hypocrite, a common politician , another talking head on TV preaching how others should live their lives?

The second one is from "Suzie Q," which is the nom de plume of a paleocon reader who spews the same old neo-isolationist (anti-American) talking points as Daniel Larison and the airheads over at Conservative Heritage. I'd bet Suzie Q is in fact a sockpuppet for one of the writers there, Old Rebel, or just could be some spineless lurker who likes taking pot shots from the shadows. In any case, here's Suzie Q's remark (in response to this post):

Donald, thank you for quoting me and beginning a discussion on the matter. I sincerely believe you've been brainwashed. I think you're wonderful on many fronts, but all anyone has to do is say, "Al Qaeda!" and it's like Pavlov ringing the bell. Neocons salivate and say, "Grow the Government! Give up our liberties! It's for 'freedom'!" Uh-huh. Right. Ummmmm... please slow down and re-evaluate the logic. The Patriot Act preserves no liberty - and provides security for the Government against conservatives, patriots, veterans, pro-lifers, and anyone who doesn't agree with statism. The Patriot Act really isn't "about" protecting us from "Al Qaeda". The Patriot Act is about statists gaining power over... conservatives. (And I'm still waiting for conservatives to stop salivating and taking the bait every time statists say, "Al Qaeda!") You see, Donald, it's a matter of PRINCIPLE. The Bill of Rights cannot be "negotiable" in the threat of a "terrorist" - or like Hitler found necessity to propagandize to create the Jew as an object of fear... the statists today find necessity to propagandaize to create "Al Qaeda" as an object of fear. SS - DHS... same difference... same pattern... same program... and I pray conservatives wake up before the knock comes to their door. Love ya, Donald, but what's it going to take to "just say no" to the DHS??

Okay, first to "anonymous." Normally anonymous comments are deleted, since I don't like responding to a non-entity, and it's generally cowardly to attack someone while being unwilling to face them publically (although butt freak E.D. Kain's recent workplace intimidation campaign makes me much more sympathetic to serious bloggers who remain anonymous).

(1) No, I don't think it's inappropriate to "drool" over "fake" celebrities. If you don't like my fawning, don't read the blog. (2) My Christian morals are where they've always been, at the center of my being and the grounding of my goodness. And can I ask you, when have I ever attacked anyone for looking at pictures of beautiful women, or for writing movie reviews of fabulous actresses like Penélope Cruz? (Even communist Spencer Ackerman's entitled to a good cleavage shot once in a while). Being Christian hardly requires that one adopt monastic asceticism. Life is what it is, and human sexuality is God-given. The key is how I conduct my own life, and for the record, that includes marital fidelity to my wife. So again, go somewhere else if you're not happy here. Frankly, this particular attack on my "hypocrisy" is hardly the first, and wholly unoriginal. I'm indulging here since I need something to write about while drinking my coffee and while my kid's having his cereal. Check back again after my next attack on Mark Sanford, or some other cheating asshole, which will be never, since I don't generally deal with them politically. (And Tiger Woods is basically open season. If ever there was epic moral fail, he's it, and Brit Hume's absolutely right that he could use a little Christian goodness.) In any case, I'd be lying if I said I never had "lust in my heart" for another woman. The real moral key is the ability to reign it in (more on that, relatedly, here, here, and here).

Now, for Suzie Q, well, that's a little more substantive, and I imagine I'll have more to say about it later. It'd be somewhere along the lines of "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." I rarely if ever write about the Patriot Act, and in any case, the law kept us safer, and there's no gainsaying the Bush administration's efforts to keep the country secure. The fact is, Dick Cheney packs hundreds of times the moral clarity on the tip of his pinky than the entire Obama administration combined.

In any case, Suzie Q and her ilk are civil libertarian absolutists. By attacking any and all exertions of forward American power they join in with the nihilist leftists out to destroy the nation. That's why I can't stand either of them. We have real threats facing this country. We'll have more Fort Hoods and Flight 253s, precisely because we're so paralyzed with actually mobilizing the nation to prevent them. And Obama's hardly alone in this. See, "The West is Choked by Fear."

Burj Dubai Renamed After UAE President

Okay, here's another posts while waiting for my uploads - plus my wife needs THIS laptop!

The main story's at the Washington Post, "Dubai opens half-mile-high tower, world's tallest." And it turns out the building's been renamed. From the Wall Street Journal, "Burj Dubai To Be Called Burj Khalifa Bin Zayed After UAE Pres." But I actually wanted to share a cool architecture review from the Los Angeles Times, by Christopher Hawthorne, " The Burj Dubai and architecture's vacant stare":

One of the odder, more complicated moments in the history of architectural symbolism will arrive Monday with the formal opening of the Burj Dubai skyscraper. At about 2,600 feet high -- the official figure is still being kept secret by developer Emaar Properties -- and 160 stories, the tower, set back half a mile or so from Dubai's busy Sheikh Zayed Road, will officially take its place as the tallest building in the world.

Designed by Adrian Smith, a former partner in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Burj Dubai is an impossible-to-miss sign of the degree to which architectural ambition -- at least the kind that can be measured in feet or number of stories -- has migrated in recent years from North America and Europe to Asia and the Middle East. It is roughly as tall as the World Trade Center towers piled one atop the other. Its closest competition is Toronto's CN Tower, which is not really a building at all, holding only satellites and observation decks, and is in any case nearly 900 feet shorter.

Monday's ribbon-cutting, though, could hardly come at a more awkward time. Dubai, the most populous member of the United Arab Emirates, continues to deal with a massive real estate collapse that has sent shock waves through financial markets around the world and forced the ambitious city-state, in a significant blow to its pride, to seek repeated billion-dollar bailouts from neighboring Abu Dhabi. Conceived at the height of local optimism about Dubai's place in the region and the world, this seemingly endless bean-stock tower, which holds an Armani Hotel on its lower floors with apartments and offices above, has flooded Dubai with a good deal more residential and commercial space than the market can possibly bear.

And so here is the Burj Dubai's real symbolic importance: It is mostly empty, and is likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Though most of its 900 apartments have been sold, virtually all were bought three years ago -- near the top of the market -- and primarily as investments, not as places to live. ("A lot of those purchases were speculative," Smith, in something of an understatement, told me in a phone interview.) And there's virtually no demand in Dubai at the moment for office space. The Burj Dubai has 37 floors of office space.

Though Emaar is understandably reluctant to disclose how much of the tower is or will be occupied -- it did not reply to e-mails sent this week on that score -- it's fair to assume that like many of Dubai's new skyscrapers it is a long, long way from being full. In that sense the building is a powerful iconic presence in ways that have little directly to do with its record-breaking height. To a remarkable degree, the metaphors and symbols of the built environment have been dominated in recent months by images of unneeded, sealed-off, ruined, forlorn or forsaken buildings and cityscapes. The Burj Dubai is just the latest -- and biggest -- in this string of monuments to architectural vacancy.

The combination of overbuilding during the boom years, thanks to easy credit, and the sudden paralysis of the financial markets in the fall of 2008 has created an unprecedented supply of unwanted or under-occupied real estate around the world. At the same time, rising cultural worry about environmental disaster or some other end-of-days scenario has produced a recent stream of books, movies and photography imagining cities and pieces of architecture emptied of nearly all signs of human presence.

More at the link.

See also, "The Burj Khalifa and regime insecurity."

Late Afternoon Babe-Blogging

I just got home from my first New Year's workout, and I've got pictures to upload and a post to write. That entry should be up later this evening sometime. In any case, checking my Sitemeter one of the first links I clicked was Theo's Spark's, "Bedtime Totty ..." That one might be a little too hot even for this blog, although Theo was impressed with Julie Bowen, so here's another shot of the "Modern Family" star until I can get back up to speed for the evening's power-blogging:

Census Launches $340 Million Ad Blitz

I saw the second half of this advertisement on Fox News this morning. I can't believe how damned pathetic this is, especially the second half featuring the dumb blonde-betty with acrylic nails getting the "correct address" from a well-spoken black brother. Are U.S. tax dollars going to "hide the decline" of inner city America? It don't look like this, and I'd be surprised if the two convassers here are even close to the mean worker hired by the Census.

Perhaps I'd think otherwise had ACORN and other leftist shakedown groups not been so quickly rehabilitated after last year's scandals. Matthew Vadum hammered House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers for whitewashing ACORN in December ("CRS Report On ACORN Is Nonsense), but left-wing extremists are ramping up attacks against "right-wing crazies" supposedly "fanning paranoia." The federal courts have already ruled that Washington can't "defund" ACORN, so with congressional Democrats beating the ACORN's-been-cleared drums, it won't be long before Bertha Lewis and pals will be "shuckin an jivin" for that down-home Census bureau undercount outreach scam. See, for example, "Government to launch $340 million ad campaign touting the 2010 Census":

... civil rights groups have long said that minorities have been under-counted because they say the Census is inaccessible to non-English speakers and the economically disadvantaged.

$80 million will be spent on ads targeted toward racial and ethnic minorities and non-English speakers. Some ads will appear in foreign languages such as Spanish, Arabic and Yiddish, according to USA Today.

Yo, got that right, mofo! The USA Today piece is here: "$340 million blitz launches 2010 Census." See also, "Census Bureau Launches 2010 Census Road Tour Across Nation."

John Fund has more at the video. Notice especially the proliferation of ACORN front groups:

RELATED: "Americans Still Need to Know the Whole Truth About ACORN and Obama."

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UPDATE: Michelle Malkin links with, "The Census boondoggle: $340 million ad campaign."

Brookings Institution: 'States of Conflict: An Update'

From Michael O'Hanlon, et al., "States of Conflict: An Update." And from the conclusion:

In Afghanistan, 2009 was the year of decisions — by President Obama, of course, by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and by the Afghan people as they re-elected Hamid Karzai as president. Afghanistan had a bloody year, with more than 300 Americans and some 500 international troops, as well as more than 1,000 Afghan security personnel, losing their lives.

However, as General McChrystal noted in recent Congressional testimony following President Obama’s decision to raise troop levels in Afghanistan, our operations have begun to change the momentum in parts of the country — though this momentum is bound to be halting, as last week’s horrific suicide bombing at a United States base made painfully clear. In the year ahead, the hope is that this fragile progress will continue, and that President Karzai will justify American support by accelerating his efforts to reform the Afghan police force and to root out corruption.

Hat Tip: Just One Minute.

Andrew Sullivan's Desperate, Stupid Photo-Smear Allegations

Glenn Reynolds has been absolutely hammering Andrew Sullivan lately. So what's a leftist to do? When all else fails, slap down the race card. Here's the Google blog search link, "Photo-Smearing Obama."

Or, check out Nice Deb:

Okay, what the heck?

Andrew Sullivan has has figured out how to turn this into a race issue, somehow?:

I tried to puzzle this one out and can just about see how an elusive photo of a tired Obama reacting to something unknowable might make him look tired or arrogant or something.

And then I realized why this photo immediately strikes some people are damning. Obama is a black man who looks as if he is condescending to a white man. That’s political gold.

Oh dear God! He deploys the overused race card, instead of noting the obvious – it’s Sunday, a slow news day. People need crap to blog about. Obama’s sour puss is as good as anything else out there.

I think it was Ann Coulter who recently said, that when it comes to Democrats and race relations, it’s perennially 1964.

I wrote about the Obama-Biden photograph yesterday. Race never came to mind. Arrogance did. But it's VERBOTEN to criticize Der Fuehrer, so out come the leftist stormtroopers.

For example:

* Demonic Ridicule Machine, "Law School Applications Take a Precipitous Drop."

* Lawyers, Gays and Marriage, "Things Can Always Get Crazier."

* The Reaction, "The Obama-Biden photo idiotically deconstructed 'round the conservative blogosphere."

* Roy Edroso, "QUOTOMATIC SELECTOR SAY ..." (Via.)

Bush's Execution, Festival of Obama, October 26, 2008

It's always leftist hypocrisy. This time, "Obama effigy hanged in Jimmy Carter's home town." (Via Memeorandum.)

Not so much outcry during the Bush years at images like this:

See also, Astute Bloggers, "THEY'RE MAKING A FEDERAL CASE OUT OF IT - FOR OBAMA ... BUT, THIS WAS AN EVERYDAY OCCURRENCE DURING THE BUSH YEARS."

A Failed Anti-Terror Strategy

From Robert Spencer, interviewed at FrontPage Magazine, "A Failed Anti-Terror Strategy":

The chief lesson of the attempted jihad attack on Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day is that our entire anti-terror strategy is a huge and abject failure. Flight 253 revealed a massive failure not only of airline security procedures, but also of the larger strategy that America and the West has been pursuing against jihad terrorism.

As for airline security procedures, Abdulmutallab was able to get on the airplane without a passport, and with ingredients for an explosive that would have destroyed the plane and killed everyone in it.

TSA officials are busy tightening security procedures with new Abdulmutallab-inspired rules such as forcing passengers to stay in their seats for the last hour of the flight, but these new measures will do nothing to prevent another attack. One thing we have seen over the years since 9/11 is that airport security is always one step behind the jihadists: after jihadist Richard Reid attempted to set off a bomb hidden in his shoes, we all have to take off our shoes and send them through security scanners.

After a group of jihadists tried to sneak onto planes explosive chemicals hidden in drink bottles, we can’t carry drinks through airport security terminals. Because Abdulmutallab attempted his jihad attack just before the plane landed, now we can’t get up during the last hour of the flight.

The one thing that the TSA should have learned, but hasn’t, is that next time the jihadists will do something else, not just repeat what they did before. And even if every passenger were given a full body cavity search, they will find some way to get around it.

But attempt a new approach based on sensible profiling? The TSA would rather fold up shop altogether.

See also, Cold Fury, "Defeat is a State of Mind."

VIDEO CREDIT: Politico, "Brennan: Deal ‘On the Table’ for Terror Suspect." (Via Memeorandum.)

America Rising: An Open Letter to Democrat Politicians

A commenter just left this at my previous post ...

We elected you on a promise of hope and change. You've disappointed us. In 2010, we are taking the country back. Blue collar democrats, independents, and conservatives. We love our country. We are proud of our founders. And we will fight to protect our traditions. We don't want your revolution.

Distribute this widely. Also on YouTube.

RELATED: Andrew Ian Dodge, "Tea Party 2010: Revolution Brewing? Or Is That Some Weak Tea?" (via Theo Spark).

**********

UPDATE: This post is getting picked up by ...

* Another Black Conservative.

* Blazing Cat Fur.

* Hummers & Cigarettes.

* Patriot Room.

* Yid With Lid.

STORMBRINGER: 'We Shall Never Surrender'

I don't mention it too often, but blogging's often a thankless job. Although never a chore for me, with so many outstanding bloggers out there, it's hard to stick out from the pack sometimes. Gaining significant traffic is a full-time job, and as I've noted recently, the opportunity costs can be felt elsewhere, including the waistline! Thus recognition, when it comes, is worth reciprocating.

I am increasingly strengthened and sustained by the people I meet online. Folks from the blogging world, and the tea party movement, are some of the country's best. But I have to admit that when active duty and retired military personnel salute my work, it's supremely gratifying, and I'm deeply honored. One of my favorite posts from last year is the letter from Major Steven Givler (pictured here), published by permission, at "On Defending the Constitution: A Reader Writes." Major Givler wrote that:

Every once in a while something encourages me to believe that there are still Americans who understand what makes us different from other nations, and who are willing to preserve that difference. Your blog ... is one of those things.

Well, it turns out that I've gotten another nice salutation today, from Sean Linnane, a retired Special Forces career NCO who blogs at Stormbringer. His post is titled, "... WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER !" And he writes:

The United States of America is the greatest nation in the entire history of the World. We are a Beacon of Hope and Freedom to untold millions, billions. We have the support of our honorable Allies, throughout the family of civilized, free nations. To date, we are the single nation capable of planting its flag on another Heavenly body.

Are we to believe that we cannot prevail against a movement of illiterates, led by a nihilist, inspired by a creed straight out of the Dark Ages?

Sean then quotes Winston Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches" speech, delivered to the House of Commons, June 4th, 1940.

I've never served in uniform. Sometimes now I wish I would have. But as I've written here many times, I was raised with a deep appreciation of the sacrifice and valor of those in the Armed Forces, and I've never taken a day for granted as one secured in liberty by those who have taken up arms, as well as those who've served in peacetime. My work as a professor, an activist, and of course my life as a traditional family man, aligns me in the preservation of those values secured by our troops. I think that's why I hear from folks in the service, active and retired, with a few nice words of gratitude for standing up for the good and just in this country and the world.

Thank you for your service, Sean.

P.S. It guess it's no coincidence that I'm a watching a New Year's broadcast of HBO's "Band of Brothers" right now. My academic work has always been informed by a deep appreciation of history and driven by a sense of American exceptionalism:

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world ....

Good Luck ! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking. -- Gen. Dwight Eisenhower (6 June 1944).

ADDED: My friend Law and Order Teacher has more thoughts at his update, "WAR."

Pennsylvania Conservative Council in 2010

My good friend Skye (pictured), who blogs at Midnight Blue Says, commented at my Facebook page yesterday, saying her PACC meeting was "inspirational." Skye's talking about the Pennsylvania Conservative Council, a citizens' activist group located in West Chester, PA . The website is here. As Skye wrote a year ago upon founding the group:

After months of planning, We have crafted a mission statement, composed our by-laws, elected a steering committee and put together the framwork that is PACC. We have focused our activities towards letter writing campaigns, seating Republican committee members and running for elected office. No small task, indeed, with guidance from the local GOP and a state legislator we have made significant inroads towards our stated goals. Together we can build a better Republican party.

Skye and PACC did fabulous work in last November's election, campaigning and organizing for conservative candidates in the West Chester Area School Board elections. Sky's got a couple of posts on their success electing their slate. See, "We Did It - CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NEW MEMBERS OF THE WEST CHESTER AREA SCHOOL BOARD!," and "WCASB Race in Detail."

Skye's also been busy completing some of her studies. She just earned her professional certificate in infection control. And on top of that, she's been super involved with photography and charity work.

As a professor of political science, and a tea party patriot, I'm really inspired by Skye's commitment to conservative values and her work putting them into action. I look forward to learning more about PACC and Pennsylvania's grassroots conservatives in 2010.

Closing the Embassy in Yemen? That's a Victory for al Qaeda

Okay, as promised earlier, here's the video clip of Bill Kristol hammering the administration on the strategic fallout from the attempted bombing of Flight 253. Both Britain and the United States have closed their embassies in Yemen, and Kristol is 100 percent right to say, "That's a victory for al Qaeda. This last week has been a victory for al Qaeda in that region, I'm afraid":

But hey, don't want to get too excited about this, right? Our establishment foreign policy scholars are saying an "overreaction" plays right into the hands of al Qaeda. Gee, I guess so, and that's why the administration's giving back their terrorists! We've got to keep diplomacy on track! It's essential we give Obama's year-long Yemeni initiative time to work! Hey, why not pull the navy out of the Gulf of Aden? Shoot, what al Qaeda threat? These are "rank amateurs" we're dealing with! If we can return Iranian-backed terrorists to the government in Tehran, there's no reason to diss our friends in Sana'a!

My Kid's Bugging Me to Watch 'Modern Family'

Seriously, my oldest kid's totally into 'Modern Family', and the past couple of nights both he and my wife have been watching video downloads on the laptap in the kitchen. Of course, they're totally laughing out loud while I'm trying to watch the big TV at the same time, and they keep saying, "you gotta watch it the next time it comes on." Well, it turns out that'll be Wednesday night, when the (surprisingly) hot sitcom comes back for with its first new episode in 2010. See, "'Modern Family' made us fall in love with sitcoms again":

Turns out that the domestic sitcom wasn't dead. It just needed a little refurbishing. Enter this witty, feel-good series, which deploys a "mockumentary" approach to peer in on three branches of a large, extended brood. The show smartly recognizes that families these days come in all shapes, sizes and cultural persuasions. Most of all, it succeeds because the writers balance their contemporary brand of comedic edge with just the right amount of old-school sweetness.

Anyway, it's a good thing I've got a young teenager to keep me up-to-date with the latest in primetime comedy coolness - and hotness, it turns out. I love Julie Bowen (pictured), who co-stars. Not only is she beautiful, she's a powerful dramatic actress as well. I enjoyed her performances in "The Ed" show sometime back. But if my family's bugging me to check out the new show, well, they won't have to twist my arm:

Jules Crittenden Rings Out the Old...

Jules Crittenden's got an interesting piece on getting fit for the new year, at the Boston Herald, "Resolve this, slugs! Get ‘Fit For Combat’ in 2010!" (via Memeorandum). He discusses J.D. Johannes "Fit for Combat" workout system (which is something I should probably be looking into).

It's good Jules is looking ahead, in any case. A lot of folks have written end-of-the-decade "aughts" essays. James Joyner even has a post up today, "Aughts Better Than We Thought?" But one of the more wrenching posts I read on 2000 to 2009 was Jules' entry, "God Damn The Naughts." I hope readers will spend a few minutes with the piece. It's quite moving:

The USS Cole bombing in Aden in October of 2000 was trouble pounding at our door. And on Sept. 11, 2001, it burst in, all the trouble that had been raging around us, that most of us had failed to notice. My memory is of the planes emptying out of the sky, one by one, each of them having a menacing quality as they flew through the same airspace over Boston through which two of the hijacked plans had departed a couple of hours earlier that morning. On the TV monitors at work, we watched the Twin Towers fall. A Boston Herald photo editor informed me that a colleague’s father was in there. The 2,973 innocent victims were the first of the many dead we would come to know in this decade.

God damn the Naughts.

For some of us, it would be a lost loved one or neighbor, or someone that someone else knew and loved. For others, it would be the faces of those they had seen killed before their eyes. For a few, it would be the faces of those they had themselves been compelled to kill. I know men intimately who I have never met, because I saw them die. I never expected that.

Some of us would send sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers off to war, and not always get them back. If they did come back, they were not the same people who had left, changed inside if not maimed outside. We would know those people or perhaps even find ourselves one of them, coming back forever changed, innocence and peace of mind taken way, in a world that would be peopled with the dead. We were supposed to have advanced beyond all that by now, to have become superior to misery, but we learned that is an unreasonable expectation in this world. Instead, like others I know, I learned something else unexpected. I was not only capable of remaining calm and functioning in combat, I enjoyed being there. I was capable of ruthlessness.

God damn the Naughts. It was a perverse decade, in which that thing so many responsible people had agreed was the right thing to do, the removal of a dangerous, mass-murdering dictator, was strangely rendered not just unnecessary but an evil act, by an unexpected twist of fate. The accusations of lies were themselves lies, all of it built on a tyrant’s framework of lies, that together became an unquenchable fire that just burned hotter. It was as revolting as the stench of death, the way they tried to make it meaningless and wrong. Except that death is honest.

RTWT at the link.

Erin Andrews Back on the Sidelines

I noticed Erin Andrews doing the sideline reporting at the Holiday Bowl in San Diego on Wednesday night. Plus, I'm watching the Pittsburgh-Miami game on CBS right now. (Added: "Steelers Defeat Dolphins 30-24 in Miami.") Sony Bravia's recent ad buy ran during the first half. I'm reminded me of this excellent piece I saw on Andrews' sportscasting career the other day, "ESPN's Erin Andrews Trying to Retrieve Old Self." She'll always be a super-hot focus of the paparazzi, but sportswriters will do her a favor with more straight reporting like this:

Sometimes the best thing a reporter can do is just stand still, blend into the surroundings. And wait. And watch. And wait some more.

It was two years ago in the middle of November in Tucson, Ariz. Erin Andrews had been alerted in her ESPN production meetings with anchors Chris Fowler and Craig James that the Oregon quarterback bore watching. Dennis Dixon was, by most accounts, leading the race for the Heisman Trophy. His Ducks had beaten USC and, despite a loss, were No. 2 in the BCS rankings.

But Dixon was hurt. The blazing fast but spindly QB had partially torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee two weeks earlier. And though he was allowed to play at Arizona, Fowler and James had heard the knee was shaky.

Sure enough, Dixon went down on a scramble early in the game. He hobbled to the sidelines and received treatment.

This is where a sideline reporter either earns his or her money – or doesn't. Every second counts, and is being counted, back in the studio. Viewers want to know what's up – now.

As she usually does, Andrews earned her keep that night. “James calls me 'the little flea,'” Andrews said during a Monday phone interview from her home in Atlanta. “Trainers can try to hide injuries. I don't care. I'll go around the other way. I love it. It's kind of like I'm snooping, like I'm a detective."

On this night, the UO people were not all that restrictive. But there are certain borders that cannot be crossed, even by personnel from the Disney corporation that pays handsomely for the right to have them on the sideline. Andrews had to wait and watch.

“Arizona's winning this game but I'm not even on their sideline because this kid who was leading the Heisman race was down. This became our story. I don't leave his side. I stood behind him and watched every interaction he had.

“I watched the trainer. I watched [UO coach] Mike Bellotti come over and his reaction. Those were my reports: 'You can see it on his face. He's upset. He's frustrated. He hasn't even moved to try to loosen up.' Those were the hints I could give. Because the guys upstairs couldn't see that. And we couldn't have a camera on Dennis Dixon the whole time.”

Finally, Andrews got the payoff she was waiting for – the smoking gun that Dixon was done:

“There was a moment where the trainer came over and he got big tears in his eyes. And I said to the producer, 'Holy crap. Come to me! Come to me! The trainer just got tears in his eyes. This kid's done. And he's done for the year.'”

Andrews never did get anything official from Oregon. But all she needed to do was relate what she saw. She told viewers moments later that there was no official update. But that the UO trainer had just given Dixon a big hug and was crying.

“I just left it at that. And Chris and Craig just said, 'Wow.'”

For a sideline gig, it was a remarkably static night, standing in one place for half an hour. Much more often, Andrews does whatever's necessary. Running from one side of the field to the other. Sticking her head near assistants' sideline huddles to overhear chalk talks. Reading lips.

“For everybody who thinks it's all fluff and 'They're not needed,' I would love them to come down and try it and see,” she said. “I'm a marathon runner down there.

My previous exclusive coverage of Erin Andrews is here.

Blogging PNSfW; or, Now Hiring at American Power: Neocon Copy Editor!

When Dan Collins left Protein Wisdom to hang his own blogging shingle, he first went with Blogger. But as I've noted previously, if you're going to be posting hot babes, you'll run the risk of earning a "Blogger content warning." Dan wasn't gonna go for that, so he quickly switched over to a Wordpress platform, thus facilitating some PNSfW blogging! For example, here.

Anyway, Dan just e-mailed to check to see if I had a typo in the title of my recent C.J. post, "The Vise Tightens Around Charles Johnson!" I actually had "The Vice Tightens Around Charles Johnson!," and I never thought twice about it. I make these kinds of mistakes pretty commonly, and it doesn't bother me too much. I blog on my own. I don't write-up first drafts in Microsoft Word. I go straight to the Blogger dashboard and have at it. Sometimes I misspell words, or I make significant typos without even noticing. It's my nihilist commenters who normally point out these lapses, since they can't get me on the hot neocon analysis! So I guess that's like throwing a few scraps to the dogs! Anyway, checking over at Dan's blog, it turns out he's pimping for some traffic with some Ali Larter hotness! See, "In Case You’re Casting Aphrodite ..." I'm out of the loop on Ali Larter, so checking her Wikipedia entry we find this hot pic available at the Wikimedia Commons. It turns out that the low-cut style is pretty much Ali's modus operandi:

So, all of this reminds me that I need to hire a copy editor. Hot neocon credentials a must!

You remember the recent backlash against Andrew Sullivan's ghostbloggers? Yep, nearly half the posts at the Daily Dish aren't even written by Sully! And the thing is, his production assistants don't even get their own bylines! AOSHQ took Daily Dish to the woodshed, "Panic at the Disco: Andrew Sullivan's Ghost-Bloggers Out Him." But even better was Glenn Reynolds, who noted:

When I have guestbloggers, they get their own bylines — and I don’t have any regular “staff” checking emails, running down links, etc. It’s just me and the readers and scheduled posts. I do ask Stacy Tabb and Aaron Hanscom to watch for typos when I’m going to be offline for a while, but that’s it. From now on I’ll wonder what on Andrew’s blog is Andrew’s. I’m pretty sure all the Trig-truther stuff, anyway ....

Aaron Hanscom's the Los Angeles editor at Pajamas Media, and while I publish occasionally at Pajamas, he's obviously not checking my blog for typos. So, if there are any hot neocons out there looking for some blogging experience, send me and e-mail! I need help desperately!

ADDENDUM: This is mostly satire, but if there really are hot young neocons out there reading this blog, fact is I can hardly afford to hire an assistant, although guest posting opportunities are available!

Nina Easton Looks Fabulous!

Nina Easton is the Washington Bureau Chief for Fortune Magazine. I read the magazine infrequently, and while I think Easton's a good journalist, it's her fashion sense that's been extremely interesting. I don't see a video clip anywhere, but perhaps some readers remember. I think it was the 2008 GOP national convention, but Easton was wearing a low-cut chemise, was near a breast-slip, and, frankly, it looked like she'd been drinking. Even earlier leftists made fun of the Bill Kristol on the Fox News panels for eyeing Easton's cleavage. But she looks great today. Beautifully done makeup, sweeping and smartly-groomed hairstyle, and a professional but feminine suit:

I'll have more on the Fox News panel later, since Bill Kristol had some important things to say on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the closing of the U.S. embassy in Yemen.

In the meantime, Smitty's got a fantastic "Rule 5 Sunday" posted over at the new Other McCain!

From the White House Flickr Page...

Glenn Reynolds asks us to analyze the body language:

Click over to Glenn's for a close-up of Obama's mug. As Glenn notes, "I don’t think Obama’s facial expression is just a fluke ..."

Then check Ann Althouse:

People who like Obama are blinded to the way other people see him. This picture strongly says cool to people who love him, but it doesn't read that way to others... including the many, many people who don't even want a cool President.

I already know Obama's a corrupt arrogant prick. What's interesting to me is the possibility that Vice President Biden, hands in pocket, could actually be a cooler corrupt arrogant prick.

I'm also reminded of how deeply I miss George W. Bush.

Added: From Ed Morrissey:

I’m sure that all is well between the two, and that this is just a fluke of photography. After all, what has Biden done that could have irritated his boss? Er, for that matter, what exactly has Biden done at all? Could Obama be annoyed that Biden has yet to do anything for Obama, or is the President just “messing with Joe”?