Cost of Environmental Damage in China

At NYT, "Cost of Environmental Damage in China Growing Rapidly Amid Industrialization":

BEIJING — The cost of environmental degradation in China was about $230 billion in 2010, or 3.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product — three times that in 2004, in local currency terms, an official Chinese news report said this week.

The statistic came from a study by the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning, which is part of the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The figure of $230 billion, or 1.54 trillion renminbi, is based on costs arising from pollution and damage to the ecosystem, the price that China is paying for its rapid industrialization.

“This cuts to the heart of China’s economic challenge: how to transform from the explosive growth of the past 30 years to the sustainable growth of the next 30 years,” said Alistair Thornton, a China economist at the research firm IHS Global Insight. “Digging a hole and filling it back in again gives you G.D.P. growth. It doesn’t give you economic value. A lot of the activity in China over the last few years has been digging holes to fill them back in again — anything from bailing out failing solar companies to ignoring the ‘externalities’ of economic growth.”

And the costs could be even higher than the ministry’s estimate, he said. The $230 billion figure is incomplete because the researchers did not have a full set of data. Making such calculations is “notoriously difficult,” Mr. Thornton said.

'Sweet Nothing'

I like this one, Calvin Harris with Florence Welch.

Well, I like the song at least. The clip's a little violent, even for me.

You took my heart and you held it in your mouth
And with a word all my love came rushing out
And every whisper, it's the worst,
Emptied out by a single word
There is a hollow in me now

So I put my faith in something unknown
I'm living on such sweet nothing
But I'm tired of hope with nothing to hold
I'm living on such sweet nothing

And it's hard to learn
And it's hard to love
When you're giving me such sweet nothing
Sweet nothing, sweet nothing
You're giving me such sweet nothing

[Beat break]

It isn't easy for me to let it go
Cause I've swallowed every single word
And every whisper, every sigh
Eats away this heart of mine
And there is a hollow in me now

So I put my faith in something unknown
I'm living on such sweet nothing
But I'm tired of hope with nothing to hold
I'm living on such sweet nothing

And it's hard to learn
And it's hard to love
When you're giving me such sweet nothing
Sweet nothing, sweet nothing
You're giving me such sweet nothing

[Beat break]

And it's not enough to tell me that you care
When we both know the words are empty air
You give me nothing

Uoooh
Uoooh
Uoooh
Nothing

[Beat break]

Uoooh
Uoooh
Uoooh

Sweet nothing

Uoooh
Uoooh
Uoooh
Sweet nothing...

Bikini Baristas

Reason's Nanny of the Month:

Background at PuffHo, "Grab-N-Go Bikini Baristas Accused of Performing Strip Shows," and at Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Bikini baristas arrested after two-month cop investigation."

Gillette's Fusion ProGlide Styler With Kate Upton

She working the advertising dollars while the getting's hot.

At Business Insider, "Gillette Has Paid Kate Upton to Persuade Men to Shave ... Everywhere."

Progressives Smear Dr. Benjamin Carson on Polygamy Comments Even Though Justice Sotomayor Raised Exact Same Concerns

This truly evil development just proves how threatening Dr. Ben Carson is to the radical left's morally bankrupt program of statist dependency.

It turns out that progressives are demanding that Dr. Carson withdraw from a scheduled commencement speech at John Hopkins University, the same university where Dr. Carson works as director of pediatric neurosurgery. He's even offered to withdraw on his own, as a goodwill gesture to tamp down the controversy. It's too bad, too. Dr. Carson needs to understand that this is just the beginning of a campaign to utterly destroy him just as any other conservative black man who's dared escape the progressive Democrat plantation. The Lonely Conservative reports, "The Left Manufactures the Dr. Ben Carson Coke Can Pubic Hair Moment."

I called out David Weigel for this faux controversy on Twitter yesterday:

@ampowerblog No, Sotomayor wasn't saying she agreed with the point.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) March 28, 2013

Here's the article I reference at the tweet, "'Be They Gays, Be They NAMBLA, Be They People Who Believe in Bestiality ...'." I sent Weigel two other tweets, but got no response:

@daveweigel POLYGAMY VS. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE:  Justice Sotomayor asked an interesting question during the Supreme… pjmedia.com/instapundit/16…
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 29, 2013

.@daveweigel You're stretching it, I think. That @instapundit link confirms my point.
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 29, 2013

Weigel defends his smear on Dr. Carson with the weaselly dodge, "Sotomayor wasn't saying she agreed with the point."

Wrong. It's clear that Justice Sotomayor was making the exact same point as Dr. Carson. Indeed, here are verbatim comments from the oral arguments, directed at Theodore Olson:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Olson, the bottom line that you're being asked -- and -- and it is one that I'm interested in the answer: If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what State restrictions could ever exist? Meaning, what State restrictions with respect to the number of people, with respect to -- that could get married -- the incest laws, the mother and child, assuming that they are the age -- I can -- I can accept that the State has probably an overbearing interest on -- on protecting a child until they're of age to marry, but what's left?

She is clearly not disagreeing with polygamy in the sense that Weigel claims. She's throwing that out there in the exact same way the Dr. Carson does, to the effect that polygamy, etc., is something that's logically implicated by allowing same-sex marriage, so where does the state's interest in prohibiting this behavior begin or end? Indeed, here's the Salt Lake Tribune's report on the controversy, "Justice brings up polygamy in Prop 8 gay marriage case." The report notes that Olson responded to Sotomayor as faced with a legitimate concern. And as Elizabeth Price Foley noted at Instapundit, "Ted Olson’s answer was not entirely satisfactory, suggesting that a ban on polygamy or incest would be a ban on “conduct,” not one based on “status”." No, it wasn't satisfactory because he's dodging the question and avoiding the problem.

Now, in an update, Weigel has changed his tune a bit, conceding that Sotoymayor raised the exact same issue as Dr. Carson, but claiming that she and Olson were "reasoning this out," or whatever. See: "Ben Carson vs. Sonia Sotomayor, Round Zero."

Fact: Both Dr. Carson and Justice Sotomayor raised the exact same worries over legalizing homosexual marriage. But the left's response --- and that of dishonest David Weigel --- has been to smear Dr. Carson but give Justice Sotomayor a pass. This is the kind of morally reprehensible politics that's always played by progressives, and unfortunately, Dr. Carson is getting hammered.

And here's more of the left's lies from the Soros-backed Obama shills at Media Matters, "Fox's Kelly Attempts to Link Justice Sotomayor and Ben Carson's Anti-Gay Comments." The writer, Lara Swartz, posts at least 1,000 words to desperately claim that "Seen in the context of a nearly two-hour oral argument with a long trial record and dozens of amicus briefs, it is unreasonable to suggest that Justice Sotomayor's question demonstrates that she agrees with Carson." Nope. No go. She raised the exact same concern regardless of the background, the context of the oral arguments, or record of the amicus briefs. Justice Sotomayor made the exact same point. The progressives are lying about what went down. Weigel backtracked from his initial dodge in his later blog posts, but the left has got its meme and they're hammering it home Alinsky style. It may be too late for the commencement speech, but Dr. Carson needs to punch back twice as hard, and now.

Post-Birth Abortion = Murder

Lonely Con has the video, "Video: Planned Parenthood Ghoul Argues For Post Birth Abortion!" And from Jenny Erikson, "Planned Parenthood Argues in Favor of Infanticide in Cases of Failed Abortions (VIDEO)."

And on Twitter, people are dumbstruck by the progressive evil, at Twitchy, "Horrifying: Fla. Planned Parenthood lobbyist argues case for infanticide."

Dear Planned Parenthood: I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure killing a live baby is both murder & a way to punch your express ticket to Hell.

— Georgia On My Mind (@Jeffares) March 29, 2013

Remember, popular support for abortion rights has tanked over the last 40 years, after Americans had a chance to get a good look at the left's depraved culture of death. We'll see the same trend with the deterioration of child welfare on the homosexual marriage front. Even leftist Supreme Court members like Sonya Sotomayor argued that the issue was so fresh that the proper place for debating homosexual marriage was in the states, not at the Court.

PREVIOUSLY: "Expect 'Setbacks' in Left's Push for Homosexual Marriage."

Rachel @Maddow Creams to Infinity Over Supreme Court's Gay Marriage Oral Arguments

Well, if you like your news served up by a giddy little lesbian schoolgirl every night, then Maddow on MSNBC is the place for you. Personally, I cringe at this woman's serial lies in the service to power. The Founding Fathers warned us against this very thing. And it's even worse than they imagined.

At Towleroad, "Rachel Maddow Examines the Supreme Court DOMA Arguments: VIDEO," and "RACHEL MADDOW SPEAKS WITH CALIFORNIA AG KAMALA HARRIS ABOUT YESTERDAY'S SCOTUS PROP. 8 ARGUMENTS: VIDEO."

The Forgotten Jewish Gravestones of East Los Angeles

Another fascinating piece, at the Los Angeles Times, "Jewish dead lie forgotten in East L.A. graves":

The Eastside neighborhoods of East L.A. and Boyle Heights have long served as an archive of Los Angeles’ multicultural history — Ellis Islands for transplants from the East and across the Pacific — and in more recent years, from Mexico.

Nowhere is this more evident than in their graveyards.

On 3rd Street off Eastern Avenue, there's the pristine Serbian Cemetery. On the 1st Street side of that graveyard is the Chinese Cemetery. The sprawling Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights is the final home of some of the most familiar family names in Los Angeles history, including the Lankershims and the Van Nuyses.

On Whittier Boulevard in East L.A., Home of Peace is a large Jewish cemetery with Roman columns and beautiful mausoleums for noted rabbis. Among the well-known buried there are two of the Three Stooges — Curly and Shemp Howard, and Jack Warner, the film executive who co-founded Warner Bros.

Earlier this year, Eddie Goldstein, perhaps the last Jew to be born and live in Boyle Heights his whole life, was buried at Home of Peace.

And then there's Mount Zion, a graveyard with a hard-luck history.

It was opened in 1916 by a burial society dedicated to provide free burials for poor Jews. Where other cemeteries featured vast expanses of trimmed grass, handsome columns and statuary, Mount Zion was mostly concrete and dirt.

The cemetery rarely made the news, for good or bad, but in 1932 it did when a Hyman Bobroff, age 50, shot himself in the head inside Mount Zion. A second bullet pierced his heart, apparently the result of a reflexive movement of his gun hand after the first pierced his skull.

A year before, the cemetery hosted the funeral for a murdered "alcohol broker."

"No big shots were at the funeral," it was reported in the Los Angeles Times, "although a number of lesser lights from the underworld appeared both at the undertaking parlors and the cemetery."

RTWT. There's a map, plus lots of pictures.

Climate Change Endgame In Sight?

From go-to guy Steven Hayward, at Power Line:

In my Weekly Standard cover story about the fallout from the “Climategate” email scandal three years ago, I offered the following question by way of prediction:

Eventually the climate modeling community is going to have to reconsider the central question: Have the models the IPCC uses for its predictions of catastrophic warming overestimated the climate’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases?

The article then went on to survey emerging research (U.S. government funded!) casting doubt on high estimates of climate sensitivity, along with alternative explanations on some climate factors, such as “black carbon.”  The question in my mind the time was how long this would take to begin to break out into the “mainstream” scientific and media world.

That day appears to have arrived.  The new issue of The Economist has a long feature on the declining confidence in the high estimates of climate sensitivity.  That this appears in The Economist is significant, because this august British news organ has been fully on board with climate alarmism for years now.  A Washington-based Economist correspondent admitted to me privately several years ago that the senior editors in London had mandated consistent and regular alarmist climate coverage in its pages.

The problem for the climateers is increasingly dire.  As The Economist shows in its first chart (Figure 1 here), the recent temperature record is now falling distinctly to the very low end of its predicted range and may soon fall out of it, which means the models are wrong, or, at the very least, that there’s something going on that supposedly “settled” science hasn’t been able to settle.  Equally problematic for the theory, one place where the warmth might be hiding—the oceans—is not cooperating with the story line.  Recent data show that ocean warming has noticeably slowed, too, as shown in Figure 2 here.

Read it all at the link (via Memeorandum and Walter Russell Mead).

I Feel Sad for Neil Heslin

Well, I first felt sad for him and the loss of his precious son. Now I feel sad for him that he's become such a gun-grabbing clown.

The Daily Beast reports, "Sandy Hook Parents' Emotional Ad."

My heart poured out for Neil Heslin after #SandyHook. But sad to say, he's become one of the most obnoxious gun-grabbers since the tragedy.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 29, 2013

Here's my post from December, "Neil Heslin, Father of Jesse Lewis, Killed in Newtown Shooting, Spends Christmas Eve Graveside":

I cried listening to this interview a couple of days after the shooting. Not shaking, sobbing crying. Just crying in my soul for this man and his unbearable loss.

Now I'll just pray for him, so that he finds his peace somehow, without taking it out on law-abiding Americans for what happened.

Radical Homosexual Marriage Proponents Have Successfully Framed Their Opponents as Bigots

A great piece, from Mona Charen, at National Review, "Why We’re Losing the Gay-Marriage Debate":

Same-sex marriage is probably inevitable in America, whatever the Supreme Court decides. That’s because the public is clearly leaning that way. That the court is even being asked to impose a sweeping social change on the nation is illustrative of another lost battle — the idea that the Supreme Court is not a super-legislature and that nine robed lawyers ought to refrain from imposing their policy preferences on the whole nation.

Even two liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, have from time to time expressed caution about the Court’s imposing its will on matters better left up to the people and their elected representatives. It will be interesting to see whether those prudential considerations come into play in their decisions in these cases or whether the desire for a particular outcome overwhelms concerns about the Court’s proper role. Too few Americans recognize this for what it is — a loss of sovereignty.

Champions of same-sex marriage are carrying the day for a number of reasons. (1) The advocacy embedded in popular entertainment such as Modern Family and Brokeback Mountain has been funny, touching, and disarming. (2) Proponents of same-sex marriage appear to be asking for simple justice. (3) Americans would rather stick pins in their eyes than willingly hurt anyone’s feelings. (4) Proponents seem to be embracing the conservative value of marriage.

Beyond all of those factors, though, the most potent argument in the SSM quiver is the race analogy. During oral argument at the Supreme Court, advocates argued (as they have elsewhere) that impairing the right of homosexuals to marry is analogous to proscribing interracial marriage. If that’s true, it’s game, set, and match. If SSM is like interracial marriage, then the only possible motive for opposing it is bigotry.

Liberals slip on this argument like a comfortable sweater. It’s easier to impugn the good faith of your opponents than seriously to grapple with their arguments. Oppose forcing Catholic institutions to distribute free contraceptives? You hate women. Oppose changing the definition of marriage? You hate gays.

Continue reading. It's a thoughtful piece. And she hits it out of the park at the conclusion.

Ms. Charen might have added that in fact the real bigots are gay rights proponents, especially when it comes to traditional values and religion.

Fighting Obama's Extremist Agenda is Not 'Obstructionism' — It's Patriotism

Liz Cheney debunks the "obstructionism" meme at the clip.

At at WSJ, "Republicans, Get Over the 2012 Loss—and Start Fighting Back":

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well-taught lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free."

—Ronald Reagan, March 30, 1961

President Reagan's words, spoken 52 years ago this weekend, still ring true, with one modification. If we don't defend our freedoms now against the onslaught of President Obama's policies, we won't have to wait until our sunset years for American freedom to be a distant memory.

These days Washington careens from crisis to crisis, most of them manufactured. The Obama White House and its allies are engaged in the kind of sky-is-falling melodrama normally reserved for the lives of teenage girls. (As the mother of teenage girls, I speak with authority on this, though the comparison does a disservice to teenagers.) With our attention diverted by each fiscal cliff or sequestration drama, we are at risk of missing the real threats to the republic.

President Obama is the most radical man ever to occupy the Oval Office. The national debt, which he is intent on increasing, has passed $16 trillion. He believes that more government borrowing and spending are the solution to every problem. He seems unaware that the free-enterprise system has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system devised by man.

Perhaps his ignorance of that fact explains his hostility toward the private sector. In one of his autobiographies, the president writes that he felt "like a spy behind enemy lines" during his brief stint working for private industry.

The president has launched a war on Americans' Second Amendment rights. He has launched a war on religious freedom. He has launched a war on fossil fuels. He is working to nationalize one-sixth of the economy with job-killing ObamaCare. He wants to collect a greater portion of every American paycheck, not for the purpose of paying down the national debt but to expand his governing machine. He doesn't believe in creating a bigger pie with more opportunity for all. He believes in greater redistribution of a much smaller pie. If you're unsure of what this America would look like, Google GOOG -1.06% "Cyprus" or "Greece."

The president has so effectively diminished American strength abroad that there is no longer a question of whether this was his intent. He is working to pre-emptively disarm the United States. He advocates slashing our nuclear arsenal even as the North Koreans threaten us and the Iranians close in on their own nuclear weapon. He has turned his back on America's allies around the world and ignored growing threats.

Continue reading.

Yes, Obama's the most radical president ever, but let's not forget that he's backed and enabled by a Democrat Party that is now more radical than ever, pushing a stealth agenda of statist authoritarianism under the happy face of "tolerance" and "fairness."

Fight these people. They are indeed evil.

Emily Miller Slams Obama's 'Disgusting' Exploitation of Newtown Tragedy for Universal Background Checks

Emily Miller is a freakin' expert on the politics of firearms. She's just hammering both Anderson Cooper and the idiot Cornell Belcher.

See: "VIDEO: Emily Miller on CNN with Anderson Cooper (March 28, 2013)."

'This is why I carry...'

A sample of what Dana Loesch deals with every day:

This is why I carry. This is just a sample of what I get daily from "gun control" advocates simply because I support 2A. It's this mindset that forced us to take defensive classes and seek police help when they came after my children three years ago. So before folks give me hell about what *I* do to protect my family, maybe look beyond your own navel. Some of us are trying to prevent more tragedy -- this time to our own families. https://twitter.com/MattCam89410489/status/317662424675266561

The Twitter account is now suspended. "Matt." A typical "tolerant" progressive. I'm sure the timeline that would've been a hoot.

Time Magazine's Gay Marriage Cover Features Erotic Homosexual Makeout Shot

At Althouse, "'One of Time's two new cover photos declaring 'gay marriage already won' looks like a wedding kiss. The other looks more like a makeout session'."

And from the comments: "Any guesses as to which will sell better at the newsstand?"

And at Time, "How Gay Marriage Won."

'Spring Breakers' Promotes Rape Culture?

Look, anything with Selena Gomez ain't going to cut with me. The young lady's still on Disney Channel. And now she's starring in a movie about some spring break hotties?

Yeah. Right.

From Heather Long, at Guardian UK, "Spring Breakers isn't just a terrible movie, it reinforces rape culture":

If you are still struggling to understand how so many people, including TV commentators and reputable news organizations, were sympathetic to the Steubenville, Ohio teen rapists, look no further than the recent film Spring Breakers.

In the opening five minutes, the audience gets slow-motion shots of bare breasts and scantily clad bums jiggling as young co-eds dance and drink on the beach. Despite the fact that college men are also engaged in this debauchery, the camera lingers on the females. The message is clear: the girls are the ones really letting loose. Even a scene in the dull university lecture hall features two of the female protagonists mimicking blow jobs in the middle of class.

In other words, Spring Breakers isn't just a terrible movie, it's 90 minutes of reinforcement of the party girl image, the kind of bad girl who's "just asking for it". The kind of girl whom some in the media and in court tried to portray the Ohio rape victim as – pointing out she was allegedly drunk and living it up the night two football players took advantage of her.

The "questionable reputation" of girls is a constant theme in Spring Breakers, which follows four young females on their quest to escape their boring small-town life with a fun beach vacation. Before they even get to the beach, the four women – including "good girl" Faith (played by former Disney Channel star Selena Gomez) – participate in a bizarre handstand ritual where they fling their legs in the air and shout, "I wanna take my clothes off," before they go smoke marijuana and, ultimately, steal a car and money for their trip.

In another scene midway through the film, one of the girls is partying at what looks like a frat house. She is drinking even more than the guys and making sexual poses as the young men encircle her and urge her to "take it like a stripper". She tells the men they can't have her, at the same time she takes her top off.

So much for the tireless campaign to make it clear that "no means no" when it comes to sex, and that if someone is obviously drunk or passed out and can't consent, you should never sleep with them. Films like this make it all the harder to combat the rape culture that exists at many high schools and colleges. Despite the fact that many students don't participate in these extremes, the image in people's heads is "college girl equals wild girl". Nothing is off-limits. Even good ones like the character of Faith just need a little nudging to let loose.

Sounds more like slut culture to me, but this is "Comment is Free," so you know where the author's coming from.

More at the link. And the trailer is here.

Expect 'Setbacks' in Left's Push for Homosexual Marriage

A surprisingly contrarian piece at yesterday's New York Times, "Success on Political Front Can Be Setback in Gay Rights":

WASHINGTON — As the justices of the Supreme Court struggled with the question of same-sex marriage this week, politicians in Congress kept handing down their own verdict. One after another, a series of lawmakers in recent days endorsed allowing gay men and lesbians to wed.

But momentum in the political world for gay rights could actually limit momentum in the legal world. While the court may throw out a federal law defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, the justices signaled over two days of arguments that they might not feel compelled to intervene further, since the democratic process seems to be playing out on its own, state by state, elected official by elected official.

The prospect that gay rights advocates may become a victim of their own political success was underscored during arguments on Wednesday over the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Opponents of the law were left to make the paradoxical argument that the nation has come to accept that gay men and lesbians deserve the same right to marriage as heterosexuals while maintaining that they are a politically oppressed class deserving the protection of the courts.

PREVIOUSLY: "The Coming Backlash Against Homosexual Marriage."

Stunning Public Shift on Homosexual Marriage

From Peter Wehner, at Commentary, "The Stunning Public Shift on Same-Sex Marriage."

I don't buy the argument that homosexuals just wanted to "share in the benefits of marriage". That might sound good, and it might be true for some individual gay couples, but the larger reality is that homosexual marriage is a direct assault on thousands of years of conservative and traditional institutional culture. Break that down and you continue the assault on the underpinnings of a free society, that which the cultural Marxists loathe with the fiery hot passions of unmitigated evil.

RELATED: "Gay Marriage Is the Media's Vehicle, Destination Is to Destroy the Church."

Lucy Pinder for Loaded Magazine April 2013

This lady will help you forget about the freak homosexuals:

Presenting Looser Women tonight at 10pm, we have the absolutely stunning @lpinderofficial! Sky 200/www.loaded.tv! twitter.com/loaded_tv/stat…
— Loaded TV (@loaded_tv) March 27, 2013

Also at Egotastic!, "Lucy Pinder Topless Pictures Loaded with Religious Iconongraphy."

Frank Citro Jr. Blackballed by Las Vegas Casinos

An interesting piece.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trapped between the covers of Nevada's Black Book":

Casinos Frank Citro Jr. is on the list of undesirables blackballed by casino regulators. At 68, he's trying to do what no one has ever done: Get off while he's still alive.

Read it at the link.