Weekend Rule 5

Starting things off with Theo's "Red Corset Totty..."

And see Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart: Vanessa Marcil."

And at Bob Belvedere's, "Rule 5 Saturday: Caterina Murino."

Plus, just breaking at Maggie's Notebook, "Rule 5 Saturday Night: Ana Beatriz Barros."

More, at American Perspective, Maggie's Notebook and Zilla of the Resistance.

Don't miss: Astute Bloggers, Blazing Cat Fur, Bob Belvedere, CSPT, Dan Collins, Doug Ross, Gator Doug, Irish Cicero, Left Coast Rebel, Mind-Numbed Robot, Legal Insurrection, Lonely Conservative, PA Pundits International, PACNW Righty, Pirate's Cove, Proof Positive, Saberpoint, Snooper, WyBlog, The Western Experience, and Zion's Trumpet.

And my friends Marathon Pundit and Marooned in Marin.

Drop your links in the comments!

The Implosion of Counterinsurgency

At the video is the fascinating exchange where General Petraeus endorses torture in the case of the ticking time bomb. Keith Olbermann, whose "Countdown" program has been resurrected, smeared Petraeus on this in a recent segment, with quotes from other top officials who essentially impugn the general's reputation.

More video from the testimony at Gateway Pundit, "American Hero General David Petraeus: “I Disagree With Barack Obama… I’m No Quitter”."

Yeah. A hero. Not to Keith Olbermann.

Anyway, on the implosion of counterinsurgency, see National Journal, "Washington Losing Patience with Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan."

John Nagl is the kind of guy who brings to mind F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wicked line in The Great Gatsby about people who succeed at such an early age that “everything afterward savors of anticlimax.” A star at West Point and a Rhodes scholar, the native Nebraskan was only 37 when he landed on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in January 2004. In that article, Nagl offered an inside-the-Sunni-Triangle tutorial on what he came to call “graduate-level war.” Nagl’s mantra: “We have to outthink the enemy, not just outfight him.” In an era when small but wily bands of nonuniformed insurgents could stymie America’s mighty military machine with stealthy guerrilla attacks and roadside bombs planted in the night, the U.S. had to figure out how to hunt down the bad guys and cut off their support from the local population. Nagl, after studying the British and French colonial experience, as well as America’s handling of the Vietnam War, helped to develop what has since become famous as U.S. “counterinsurgency doctrine,” or COIN. As his celebrity grew, Nagl proselytized about it everywhere, even on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

By the late 2000s, the precocious Army major had become part of a brain trust around America’s uber-general, David Petraeus, the commander who implemented the Iraq troop surge. Commissioned by Petraeus, Nagl helped to author the official counterinsurgency manual that has since reoriented American military doctrine, shifting the center of gravity from rough-and-ready conventional war fighters to cerebral specialists in irregular warfare and targeted response. After retiring from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in early 2008—even though he seemed to be on the fast track to four-star fame—Nagl took over a little-known think tank, the Center for a New American Security, and turned it into what journalist Tara McKelvey called “counterinsurgency central in Washington.”

Brilliant and brash as ever at the advanced age of 45, Nagl delivers a sober endorsement of the military’s current COIN strategy in Afghanistan, which, because it was adapted from Iraq, is partly his brainchild. It is a strategy that many experts believe is not working—and the skeptics may now include President Obama himself. “I think any sane person would be disillusioned,” Nagl says over a lunch of mussels and mozzarella salad at Finemondo, a lushly decorated restaurant around the corner from his office. Even some of those around Petraeus (who is retiring from the military to run the CIA) are losing heart. But Nagl says that the Janus-faced core of COIN strategy—winning over the Afghan population with kindness, aid, and a multibillion-dollar policy to “clear, hold, and build” towns and villages while ruthlessly killing off insurgents—is just starting to succeed. He laments that the debate in Washington is dominated by critics who complain that the war is almost 10 years long and already more hopeless than Vietnam.

RTWT.

Yet another reason I'm unhappy with the president. Cut-and-run is one thing, but running when the tide is turning is another. George W. Bush refused to abandon Iraq, and that's when the consensus from all quarters was that the war was a "fiasco." We persevered in Iraq, and it's a stable emerging democracy today. In Afghanistan, I'm not confident we'll be able to say the same thing a fews years from now.

Too Hot for Huffington Post: 'The Hamas - Oops, Gaza - Flotilla'

I first read of Huffington Post's censorship of David Harris at Power Line, "Too Hot for HuffPo."

Harris is the Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, and his essay's posted at AJC's website. An excerpt:

George Orwell, where are you? You could have a field day with this story.

Actually, you anticipated it when you wrote about the Ministry of Truth in your classic book, 1984. What were the ruling party's slogans on the outside of the 1,000-foot-tall building housing the ministry? Weren't they "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength"? And didn't the ministry rewrite history at will to ensure it always served the party's interests?

The Gaza flotilla spokesmen are inverting the truth and rewriting history at will to serve their interests. And what are those interests? To prop up the Hamas regime in Gaza and delegitimize Israel.

While they are entitled to their own opinions, however misguided, they are not entitled to their own facts.

They cannot separate Hamas from the equation. Much as they might try, the central fact is that Hamas is key to understanding Gaza today.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. Don't take my word for it. Check with the United States and European Union, both of which have designated Hamas as a terrorist entity.

You can see why that's an "Oops!" Doesn't jibe too well with the neo-communist narrative.

More at Ron Radosh, "The Huffington Post Censors AJC’s David Harris, for Telling the Truth about the New Flotilla."

And linked there, Howard Jacobson, "Why Alice Walker shouldn't sail to Gaza."

Update on Thomas Ball Self-Immolation Suicide

I hadn't planned on doing too much writing on this, since my main interest is how once again we see Amanda Marcotte as the extremist personification of the radical feminist agenda.

But the story continues to develop in the blogosphere, and I'm part of the debate. Marcotte responded to me on Twitter this morning, which was her initial statement since first commenting on the Thomas Ball suicide (and she's updated on Twitter here).

I also tweeted Robert Stacy McCain, knowing his occasional Amanda Marcotte blogging, and he's got a post up: "The Beast of Babylon Wears Bangs: Amanda Marcotte’s ‘Pure Feminist Evil." And he writes:

Being a tolerant sort of person, I have sometimes entertained the thought that maybe Amanda Marcotte is merely misguided or ignorant, an idea I kicked around when she made a complete fool of herself over the Anthony Weiner scandal. But perhaps it is time to consider whether she is in fact deliberately and consciously evil.

RTWT. Robert goes out of his way to point out that he's not a men's rights activist. Neither am I, but more often than not I hear of men bearing the brunt of unjust legal separation from children, although I have neither the experience nor expertise to comment more widely on the phenomenon. Note, though, that Thomas Ball was in fact an activist with the Central Massachusetts Chapter of the Fathers' Rights Movement. And those initially blogging on the story are clearly advocates for men's rights. So, it's a pretty fascinating story all around. Indeed, Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology has an update on the story, "Amanda Marcotte Continues to Say That Men Use Suicide to Hurt Women." And Snark responds to Robert Stacy McCain, "Amanda Marcotte Is Not Evil." I disagree fundamentally with that post, however, not so much over Amanda Marcotte's alleged demonology, but on the underlying premise of her comments themselves. These aren't one-off, throwaway statements, as Snark suggests. Marcotte claims that men inflict pain on themselves --- even kill themselves --- as a way to further victimize women. THAT is representative of radical feminism and THAT is inflammatory, if not evil, with all due respect to Thomas Ball. But the context is key. Marcotte speaks in furtherance of extreme feminist praxis. (So that's not to say some leftists aren't indeed evil --- Scott Eric Kaufman and Carl Salonen come to mind --- but more that Marcotte's statements, as reprehensible as they are, reflect attempts at political speech rather than actions intended to destroy.)

In any case, Dr. Helen Smith has weighed in, "My take on the Thomas Ball case." And the crucial passage, regarding Thomas Ball's last testament:

His statement is not the ramblings of a madman, it is the mission of a warrior in some sense. He was fighting for his rights and for yours, if you are male. He was trying to bring some urgency to the male plight in this country, one that no one appreciates or cares about until they are engaged in the battle of the courts. If you want to understand more about how men's rights are being stripped by family courts, take a look at Stephen Baskerville's book Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family.

Oh, and Instapundit updates his original entry with comments from Assistant Village Idiot.

Image Credit: HyperVocal.

Sarah Palin Heads to Iowa on Tuesday

For the premiere of "The Undefeated," the big new documentary that's perfectly timed for a major Palin announcement.

At National Journal, "Palin to Iowa Tuesday":

Just as some pundits were counting her out as a presidential candidate, Sarah Palin has laid on plans to visit Iowa next week -- one day after her tea party soul mate and potential rival, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is set to launch her presidential campaign in the same state.

Distributors of The Undefeated, a flattering documentary about Palin's political career, announced Saturday that the former Alaska governor and her husband, Todd, will attend a premiere of the movie Tuesday in Pella, Iowa.

The town, about 40 miles east of Des Moines, is home to an historic opera house where the movie will be shown.

"We are very excited to visit historic Pella and its opera house and look forward to seeing the finished film for the first time with fellow Americans from the heartland," Palin is quoted as saying in a release announcing her plans to attend the event.

The national rollout for the movie begins July 15.

Also at the Victory Film Group, "GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN TO ATTEND PREMIERE OF THE UNDEFEATED AT PELLA OPERA HOUSE IN PELLA, IOWA" (via Memeorandum).

New York Legalizes Gay Marriage

Well, six down and 42 to go.

At Los Angeles Times, "New York Legislature passes gay marriage bill."

With the forceful backing of a newly elected Democratic governor, the New York State Legislature gave final approval late Friday to a bill permitting same-sex marriage, enabling gay couples to head for the altar in late July.

After a sometimes emotional hourlong debate, the 62-member, Republican-controlled Senate approved the measure, 33 to 29. Earlier in the evening, the Democratic-led Assembly had amended its version of the bill to match the Senate's, which carried additional exemptions for religious organizations that do not want to acknowledge or extend benefits to gays who marry.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who made the issue a centerpiece of his election campaign last year, signed the bill just before midnight. It will take effect in 30 days, making New York the sixth state, and the most populous by far, to permit same-sex marriage.

"What this state did today brings marriage equality to a new plane," Cuomo told reporters. "We reached a new level of social justice." Outside the Senate chamber, many opponents sat on the floor and prayed aloud for the state.

The amazing thing is how anti-climactic this is.

Gay marriage is coming to America, but it's not coming through a wave of popular, down-home demand. It's coming through the ram-it-down-your-throats progressive politics on the coasts, and the Berkeley-esque enclaves in the major urban areas across the heartland. If there was ever a case for letting federalism prevail, this is it. States should be free to decide their own policies on same-sex marriage. The Blankenhorn and Rauch manifesto is workable, and vital in preventing a progressive tyranny at the federal level from crushing the states. See: "A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage." And the progressive sensationalism on this is deeply offensive, for example, "The arc of history bends towards justice in N.Y." Actually, gay marriage is not a civil right. Gay Americans are not an oppressed minority, but one of the most affluent and powerful interest groups in American politics. That's why a federal solution to the gay marriage issue remains vital. The gay radical lobby will browbeat kind and reasonable Americans, folks who don't want to put up with the fuss of being hammered over the head or dragged before Stalinist show trials. It's pretty bad, but it's the way things are going around here.

Image Credit: Good as You, "Photo: Stonewall. Right now. 42 years later" (via Memeorandum).

RELATED: Rim-station radicals celebrate in New York.

Orange County Continues to Hold Conservative Values

And not in the 1950s sense.

The county's demographics are more diverse than ever. Traditional family values are thriving as newer groups, with strong cultural and religious traditions, increase in population.

At Los Angeles Times, "Orange County remains a bastion of conservative family values."

Orange County, home to 3 million people, has the lowest percentage of single-parent households of any county in Southern California, according to a Times analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures, as well as the lowest percentage of households occupied by opposite-sex unmarried couples.

It also has one of the lowest percentages of same-sex households and has retained one of the highest percentages in the region of nuclear-family households — those with a married man and woman who are raising children under age 18.

Orange County has not sidestepped entirely the modernization of the California family. Its percentage of nuclear-family households, for instance, while relatively high, fell between 2000 and 2010 from 29.1% of households to 26.1%. Overall, however, the county is a bastion of tradition, relatively speaking.

"Change is happening, just at a slower pace," said Edward Flores, the project manager with the population dynamics research group at USC.

Ah, change at a slower pace. That's a conservative principle. Nice.

CONTRAST: At The Other McCain, "Viva, Californication?"

Saturday Cartoon Roundup

At Theo Spark's.

And at Power Line, "TOO LITTLE, WAY TOO LATE: THE CARTOON."

Bonus: At Doug Ross, "Photos: Insane Plane-Spotting Tourists on the Island of St. Maarten."

Congresswoman Renee Ellmers (R-NC) Delivers Weekly Republican Address, 6/25/11

From the House GOP Conference:

'Pure Feminist Evil' — Amanda Marcotte's Response to Thomas Ball's Courthouse Self-Immolation

She's constantly in the news!

See the "pure feminist evil" commentary at Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology, "Man Burns Himself To Death; Women Hardest Hit" (via Instapundit). Also at Snark, "Amanda Marcotte Weighs In On Thomas Ball." I think Amanda's comments are so vile that SHE may need a bodyguard, and that's saying something. (And I don't see her commenting on Twitter, which is telling.)

Read about the suicide at the Holden Daily, "Holden man sets himself ablaze in front of New Hampshire Courthouse," and Keene Sentinel, "Last statement sent to Sentinel from self-immolation victim."

And more, at In Mala Fide, "Fatwa of the Week: Keene Sentinel Whitewashes Tom Ball’s Suicide."

More later ...

Allison Benedikt's 'Life After Zionist Summer Camp'; or, The Mysterious Evolution of a Dumb Hadassah Youth Activist to Hip Progressive Israel-Basher

With apologies to Susan Strange for the title.

A lot of this is Jewish inside baseball, so I'm only partly competent to weigh in authoritatively, but my first impression while reading is that Allison Benedikt is, to be frank, a monstrously ignorant, enormously indecisive groupie/wannabe hipster. The essay's written in a kind of droll childish style. It reminds me of someone you might see walking down the street but looks like they don't have the slightest clue where they're going. Benedikt, a Jew from the Midwest, lived her entire life thinking she was going to make aliyah, only to decide that, nah, Zionism wasn't so cool after all. The clincher is that she met, and then later married, a "progressive" non-Jewish dude named Mark (not Marc, to the horror of her parents). Mark had been duly programmed as a zombified anti-Semite by some sections of the modern Jew-hating left. He obviously liked Allison, despite religious differences, and thus quickly went to work destroying her faith in Israel, and since she'd spent an entire life refusing to really learn about the country of her faith --- and her parents' enduring commitment --- she basically melted into a Hamas-defending self-hating American Jew who would be perfectly at home in the comment threads at Daily Kos. It's a long read, so find a few minutes before diving in. The main takeaway is how the piece is like catnip for the neo-communists now cheering the next Gaza flotilla.

Anyway, I saw this when it came out, and then William Jacobson wrote a pithy post, so I was reminded: "Least Shocking Blog Post Title Ever: “Village Voice Editor discovers she hates Israel, curses when challenged”." Check that entry, but the preview is that she told Israeli historian Yaacov Lozowick to f**k off on Twitter. Not surprising, I know. And check the Memorandum link as well. Benedikt gave a cryptic citation to the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, and he felt obligated to comment, and at considerable length as well. And the debate devolved to include Andrew Sullivan, but I don't read him so you'll just have to check it out.

'The Crush at the Afghan Exits'

An editorial at the Wall Street Journal.

The NATO allies will follow Obama's move and cut-and-run from the deployment: "France to gradually pull troops from Afghanistan."

I noted previously that it's not the Afghans who're forcing us out. Domestic political calculations are driving policy, and I pray the region doesn't deteriorate into a million Mumbais, but that's asking a lot from the Man Upstairs.

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

At WSJ earlier this week, Geert Wilders mentioned that Ms. Sabaditsch-Wolff wasn't as lucky as he was to be acquitted. She was convicted in February for "incitement to hatred" and "denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” for giving informational seminars on Islam."

This is another Ezra Levant interview that really crescendos with power. Ms. Sabaditsch-Wolff concludes:

The thing is, you don't care about freedom of speech until you've lost it. But I'm here to tell you that I will never, ever give up the fight for freedom of speech.

Heidi Klum Nude!

Really.

At AdWeek, "Heidi Klum Gets Naked for Latest 'Project Runway' Ad." And Chicago Tribune, "'Project Runway': Heidi Klum bares all to promote Season 9."

RELATED: At London's Daily Mail, "In the hot seat! Kim Kardashian sizzles in a little black dress for guest role on Project Runway."

Steven Crowder on the Free Enterprise System

Via Theo Spark:

Huma Abedin's Ties to the Muslim Brotherhood

Jamie Glazov interviews Walid Shoebat at FrontPage Magazine, "The Dark Muslim Brotherhood World of Huma Abedin."

Glazov also interviewed Robert Spencer, "Abedin/Weiner: A Marriage Made by Hillary Clinton and the Muslim Brotherhood?"

And at World Net Daily, "Weiner's mother-in-law a member of Muslim Brotherhood."

Ed Morrissey's Visit to Israel

He's mentioned it at the blog a couple of times, but he's got an interesting interview at this post as well, "Farewell, Jerusalem." He's speaking with Erielle Reshef from IBA News:

NewsBusted: 'Obama not spending enough time with daughters'

Via Theo Spark:

The Hate Israel industry

From Kelly McParland, at National Post, "Dog days in the Hate Israel industry":

Things must be getting tougher in the Hate Israel industry these days, what with Arab leaders slaughtering their own people everywhere you look, in order to hold onto their jobs.

People were killed in Egypt, people were killed in Tunisia and Bahrain, people are still being killed in Yemen, Libya and especially Syria. They’re being killed because they’d like to change the government, which you can do in Israel just by turning up to vote. They’re being killed because they’d like to be more like Israel. How can you focus the world’s attention on the despicable state of affairs in apartheid Israel when the people in neighbouring countries insist on giving up their lives in hopes of winning similar rights to those Israel already offers? It’s almost like the protesters in all those places didn’t realize that the source of all their troubles lies in Jerusalem, not in their own countries.

Hate Israel people aren’t easy to persuade, though, so they’re persevering despite the headwinds. The folks behind the Canadian boat to Gaza sent their little contingent off on the weekend to join the heroic struggle to break the murderous Israeli blockade of Gaza and bring life-saving supplies to its besieged people. The people of Gaza aren’t really besieged, and it’s not really that hard to send them supplies, if that’s your intention, but admitting as much would spoil all the drama and self-serving bombast of the Hate Israel folks, so they’re pretending otherwise. If they’re really lucky, Israel will try to turn back the boat and they can try to provoke a confrontation, enabling them to get a ton of international publicity for themselves, which is what they live for. It might be a bit more difficult than in the past, though, since Israel may be reluctant to play along, and since the blockade has already been eased. And Turkey, which has been supportive of the flotillas, has its hands full trying to deal with the flood of civilians fleeing Syria to escape the government’s murderous campaign to put down a popular revolt. (Syria is one of those countries that kills people who challenge the government, a state of affairs the Hate Israel people have to studiously ignore.)

Amazingly clear and concise commentary. But the world plays along with the Islamist charade, in a pro-Palestinian campaign of anti-Semitic hatred.

'Hitler's in the Charts Again'

An encore from last year, more relevant than ever:

Listen to the sound of the soldiers dancing
Armageddon time on the firing line
Don't know what they're doing
Looks like trouble's brewing
Wunderbar, auf wiedersehen
Hitler's in the charts again
You look like a tramp - put you in a camp
Join the shower queue in your dancing shoes
Be the dancing champ of your concentration camp
Keep on movin' fast, remember Belsen was a gas
Hitler's in the charts again
Moving in a trance, watch the soldiers dance
Bloodstains on their feet, scared of everyone you meet
Army's on the street, can you feel the heat
Watch the soldiers fall - it couldn't happen here ...