Communist Folk Singer Pete Seeger Dies at 94

A long obituary at the New York Times, "Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94." This passage is telling:

In 1955 he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he testified, “I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature.” He also stated: “I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this.”

Mr. Seeger offered to sing the songs mentioned by the congressmen who questioned him. The committee declined.

Althouse likes that as well, "'I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs'." (Via Memeorandum.)

Here's Seeger's entry at Discover the Networks:

In 1945 Seeger became the national director of People's Songs, Inc, an organization designed to “create, promote and distribute songs of labor and the American People.” Within a few years, the California Senate Fact-finding Committee reported that:

"People's Songs is a vital Communist front … one which has spawned a horde of lesser fronts in the fields of music, stage entertainment, choral singing, folk dancing, recording, radio transcriptions and similar fields. It especially is important to Communist proselytizing and propaganda work because of its emphasis on appeal to youth, and because of its organization and technique to provide entertainment for organizations and groups as a smooth opening wedge for Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist propaganda."

Seeger parted ways with the Communist Party in 1950 and eventually renounced strict Stalinism, in favor of socialism and pro-labor activism. "I realized," says Seeger, "I could sing the same songs I sang whether I belonged to the Communist Party or not, and I never liked the idea anyway of belonging to a secret organization."

In 1955 Seeger was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, whose questions about his past Communist ties he answered evasively or not at all. The following year Seeger was indicted for contempt of Congress. In 1961 he was found guilty of that charge and was sentenced to ten years in prison, though in 1962 his conviction was overturned on a technicality.

In the 1960s Seeger was deeply involved in the civil rights movement and its hallmark demonstrations. His musical interpretation of an old spiritual, which he called We Shall Overcome, became a signature song of the movement. The song was played at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. In subsequent years, Seeger would perform benefit concerts on SNCC's behalf.

Historian Ronald Radosh writes: "Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, Seeger called for peace, peaceful co-existence between the United States and the Soviet Union, singing songs like Put My Name Down, Brother, Where Do I Sign? -- a ballad in favor of the Soviet Union’s phony international peace petition that favored unilateral disarmament by the West while leaving the Soviet atomic stockpile intact. He would sing and give his support to peace rallies and marches covertly sponsored by the Soviet Union and its Western front groups and dupes -- while leaving his political criticism only for the United States and its defensive actions during the Cold War."

Seeger was an opponent of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. He similarly opposed the U.S. military campaigns and weapons buildup during the Reagan years of the Cold War. He supported the Nuclear Freeze Movement of the 1980s -- a Soviet-sponsored initiative that would have frozen Soviet nuclear and military superiority in place and would have rendered Reagan unable to close that gap to any appreciable degree. Seeger has used his status as a folk icon to lend support to a number of leftwing causes and initiatives.

I don't see it yet, but I expect far-left historian Erik Loomis to post a glowing obituary at some point, at Lawyers, Gays and Marxists. (See Robert Stacy McCain for Loomis' background, "He’s a Lumberjack, and He’s OK: The Wobbly Scholarship of Erik Loomis, Ph.D.")

Expect updates. It's going to be interesting to see the leftist bloggers salivate over Seeger's anti-American legacy.

What Purpose International Holocaust Remembrance Day?

From Caroline Glick, at JPost, "International Holocaust Remembrance Day’s fatal flaw":

On the surface, it is very moving to see half of the members of Knesset at Auschwitz marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

But in a larger sense, it is not at all clear why this is necessary.

The Jewish people have Yom HaShoah V’Hagevura, our own national day of mourning for the genocide of our people in Europe.

More importantly, we carry the legacy of the Holocaust inside of us.

Every day, at some level, we experience the ulcerative loss of a third of the Jewish people in the hell of Europe, because we feel the hollow absence of the victims.

The six million murdered have become 10 million descendants who were never born. And we miss them.

We remember them too, every day, when we look at our children and thank God we can protect them.

Israel does not need this extra Holocaust memorial day. And before we send another delegation of elected officials to Auschwitz next January 27, we need to ask whether this extra day serves any positive purpose.

In November 2005, Israel was one of the co-sponsors of the UN General Assembly resolution that made January 27, the day Auschwitz was liberated, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. At the time, Israeli politicians and American Jewish leaders extolled the resolution as signaling a new era of UN relations with the Jewish state.

Consider for instance that a week before its duly mandated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the UN ushered in 2014 as the Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The occasion was marked among other things, by the January 20 opening of a yearlong exhibit at the UN Headquarters in New York portraying Israelis as Nazis and Palestinians as Jews.

Since 2005, anti-Semitism has risen throughout Europe, as have levels of anti-Semitism among Europhilic Americans.

Jews throughout Europe feel under assault, and unprotected. The situation is so bad that Jews don’t even bother reporting most of the anti-Semitic attacks they suffer.

The more closely we consider events the more clearly we see that ironically and obscenely, Holocaust memorializing in Europe is enabling anti-Semitism.

Europeans use the focus on the Holocaust to pretend that European anti-Semitism began with the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933 and ended with their defeat 12 years later. In truth, the Nazis’ rise to power was a natural consequence of 1,600 years of European Jew hatred.

From the time of Roman Emperor Constantine, persecution, expulsion and massacre of Jews was the norm, not the exception, in European life.

Hitler and his colleagues were adored not despite their hatred of Jews and their organization of German politics around the dehumanization of Jewish people. They were supported by the Germans, and by the majority of the people in the European lands they conquered because of their anti-Semitism and their dehumanization of Jews.

This Jew hatred did not die in Auschwitz.

As Ruth Wisse explained in August 2010, political anti-Semitism was resuscitated immediately after the war ended with the establishment of the Arab League. The League’s sole purpose was to reorganize anti-Semitic politics around denying the Jewish people their legal right to establish a sovereign state in their homeland.

In other words, with the establishment of the League in March 1945, the just-ended physical annihilation of European Jewry was replaced by the campaign to deny Jews political freedom and independence in our land.

Rather than combat this affront to international law and to the Charter of the United Nations, Europe, along with the rest of the world, sought to appease, and so facilitated and encouraged Arab anti-Jewish aggression.

Continue reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Historians Uncover Scale of 'Holocaust by Bullets'."

Nina Agdal for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2013

It won't be long now until the new issue's unveiled.

Until then, "Nina Agdal Swimsuit Photos - Sports Illustrated Swimsuit."

Historians Uncover Scale of 'Holocaust by Bullets'

Well, the camps were hardly the only means of extermination for the Nazis, but this is interesting.

At NYT, "Shedding Light on a Vast Toll of Jews Killed Away From the Death Camps":

OSWIECIM, Poland — As one gazes out from the main watchtower at the grim desert that is the crumbling chimneys and crematories, vanished prisoners’ huts, barbed wire and ditches of Birkenau, it is hard to fathom that there were corners of the Nazi realm where, collectively, more killing occurred than in the death camps.

Monday, the 69th anniversary of the day Soviet forces liberated Auschwitz, was observed as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yet a third or more of the almost six million Jews killed in the Holocaust perished not in the industrial-scale murder of the camps, but in executions at what historians call killing sites: thousands of villages, quarries, forests, wells, streets and homes that dot the map of Eastern Europe.

The vast numbers killed in what some have termed a “Holocaust by bullets” have slowly garnered greater attention in recent years as historians sift through often sketchy and incomplete records that became available after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“People sat down and added the numbers up,” said David Silberklang, a senior historian at the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial.

As the number of Holocaust survivors gradually declines, these documents or witness accounts — from Belarus, Ukraine, parts of Russia and the Baltic States — have illuminated a new picture of the Nazis’ methods.

Most of this slaughter occurred in Eastern Europe after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and it mixed with the increasing chaos of the war once the Germans failed to realize their ambition of subduing the Soviets in just eight to 12 weeks and faced the prospect of defeat.

“The further east the Wehrmacht went, the greater the killing,” Dieter Pohl, a professor of history at Klagenfurt University in Austria, said at a conference on the subject this month in Krakow, Poland. The executions and unmarked mass graves became “an element of German rule in Eastern Europe.”

In the years after 1945, the executions were not discussed much. The shock of the discovery of concentration camps was one factor. The camps had survivors, found in place, who told their unimaginable tale. By contrast, the local executions terrorized and silenced survivors in the eastern regions. In addition, after World War II, many witnesses were left behind the Iron Curtain, and no one was interested in their memories.

On the ground, “news about killing in local fields spread much more quickly than the murky rumors” about gassing at concentration camps, Dr. Pohl said.

“Only a few survivors could testify after 1945,” he added. As a result, “there is still no comprehensive overview of the killing sites.”

Dr. Silberklang said that “in the popular mind, this subject is far less known than the Holocaust.” The executions became, he said, “in a sense, invisible.”

Keep reading.

ICYMI: "Have You Read it? The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945." (And check the Amazon link.)

More Americans Sick of Militant Homosexual Agenda

At Toronto's National Post, "‘Marriage is not a circus event, it’s sacred’: Not everyone was crazy about Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ mass wedding at the Grammys":

The song Same Love, performed by Macklemore, Mary Lambert and Ryan Lewis at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, took on a whole new meaning when Queen Latifah emerged during the song to marry 33 couples on sight, many of whom were same-sex.

The couples — ranging also in age and race — were married one after another throughout the song, with many singing along through tears during the performance. Following the marriages, Madonna then hit the stage to perform a slowed-down version of her hit song Open Your Heart, wearing all white (with a cowboy hat to boot).

During and after the performance Grammys viewers took to social media to express their thoughts on the spectacle. Many praised this celebration of marriage equality, and felt the performance was an emotional tribute to the acceptance of gay marriage....

Though most of the reactions to the performance were positive, not everyone was a fan of the event. Some viewers felt the mass wedding was gimmicky and nothing but a publicity stunt, while others still took a moral stance against the performance. John Gray, an associate teaching pastor at Lakewood Church, felt the performance was a dishonour, tweeting that “adding clear church imagery is wrong.” Bryan Fischer, a director of issue analysis at the American Family Association, felt the wedding ceremonies were “sodomy-based.”

Heads up: Grammy telecast to feature sodomy-based wedding ceremonies. http://t.co/pbdVOkYuG8
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) January 26, 2014

@dglasscock Exactly!!!! Getting sick of it.
— Sandy Koch (@sandylkoch) January 27, 2014

I said to mom "you still watching the Grammy awards" She texted back & said "I was until this fag started singing" 😂😂😂💀💀💀
— ebh•♛ (@_BrookexO__) January 27, 2014

The mass wedding ceremony at the end of Ryan Lewis/Macklemore was perplexing. Marriage is not a circus event, it's sacred.
— Katie Newingham (@KatieNewingham) January 27, 2014

Total mockery of God on the Grammys tonight! The world has gone gay-mad! And it is sickening! http://t.co/diYnT3ONGz
— BusterWilson (@busterwilson) January 27, 2014

Praying for Next Generation as Grammy Awards Show pushes the Gay Marriage agenda on our kids watching.Why have wedding on music award show?
— Kenny Hibbard (@kennyhibbard) January 27, 2014

@CBS CBS: Shame on you, the Grammy's is supposed to be a family friendly show. It was disgusting, and sick to have gay marriages.
— Dr R Joseph Milligan (@parsonjoe1) January 27, 2014

Added: From the Mad Jewess, "Over-whelming Huge Majority People Are SICK of the *PROMOTION* of Homosexuality In U.S. & I’ll Prove It."

Macklemore's 9/11 Truther Tweet

The tweet's still up but folks have it on screencap for good measure.

At Twitchy, "‘Bush knocked down the towers’: Is Macklemore a 9/11 truther?"



More, "Flashback: Mr. Macklemore goes to Washington."

Oh My! Michele Bachmann Slams Socialist Bernie Sanders on Obama's 'War on Women'

I was watching this, heh.

Bachmann just destroys the hapless socialist senator from Vermont!

And Mediaite has the full video, "Michele Bachmann vs. Bernie Sanders CNN Debate Goes Completely Off the Rails":

For much of the debate it appeared the Bachmann and Sanders were talking simultaneously, while a seemingly helpless Blitzer sat on the sidelines choosing not to moderate in the traditional sense.

When Sanders said Republicans want to cut Social Security, Bachmann shot back with, “That is absolutely a lie. It’s brought up all the time and it’s a lie. Let’s face it, Senator Sanders. you shouldn’t be lying about what our position is.” When he asked her directly if she supports “chained CPI” and raising the minimum wage, Bachmann would not answer, choosing instead to direct the points she was trying to make straight towards Blitzer. Meanwhile, Bachmann had to pause several times throughout the conversation to tell Sanders to “calm down.”

The @cnn booker who put Michele Bachmann and Bernie Sanders on together should get a raise.

— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) January 27, 2014

.@KTumulty VIDEO: Bachman: Obama created war on women: http://t.co/binHhp20nP #TCOT #TGDN

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 27, 2014

Marlboro Man Eric Lawson Dead: Smoking-Related Illness Cited

A phenomenally successful ad campaign by the cigarette maker.

But cigarettes kill, no need to be PC about it. My mom had major lung surgery last year after some 50-odd years of smoking. She's lucky to be alive. My wife's mom died of lung cancer sometime back, and her dad gave up cigarettes a few years ago after saying he'd never quit. At some point mortality stares you in the face and you realize smoking's not worth it --- although I'm not an anti-smoking activist. Folks should be able to enjoy a smoke if they want it. The problem is that they're so addictive. I smoked for a couple of years when I was going to Hollywood all the time. A cigarette and a cup of coffee is a major stimulation feed! Amazing even, the kick you get out of the nicotine (once you get use to it). Not glamorous anymore, although I still admire the rugged look sometimes. It's part of the culture.

In any case, at London's Daily Mail, "Former Marlboro Man, 72, becomes FIFTH actor from iconic cigarette ads to die of lung disease."

Lawson died of respiratory failure from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Cool Ringo Starr Shout-Out to Wolf Blitzer

Yeah, because Wolf's cool like that.

.@WolfBlitzer Dude, congrats on that Ringo Starr shout out, heh! http://t.co/dl3k2V5hLo

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 27, 2014

Greta Van Susteren Attacks Erick Erickson

My money's on Greta.

At Politico, "Van Susteren: Erick Erickson is 'a jerk!'"

And follow the links on Twitter.

@gretawire calls out @EWErickson for sexist tweets http://t.co/PcNnJJKHxu
— Luke Johnson (@johnson) January 27, 2014

Giant African Land Snails

Crazy.

At Instapundit, "EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL: Foot-Long, Sex-Crazed Snails That Pierce Tires and Devour Houses."

Hillary Clinton: My Biggest Regret Is What Happened In Benghazi...'

In 2008 I had a lot of respect for Hillary Clinton, particularly with respect to Barack Obama (who I wanted to lose). But this last four years was a revelation on this woman's politics, and especially Hillary's politics of "what difference does it make?"

CNN has the video on her Benghazi comments today, "Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton speaks at NADA."

And at Memeorandum, "Clinton's biggest regret at State: Benghazi."

And from Gateway Pundit, "What Difference Does It Make?… Hillary Says Biggest Regret “Is What Happened in Benghazi”."

Screw #BDS: Scarlett Johansson in Sexy Super Bowl Commercial for SodaStream

Following up on my earlier entry, "Scarlett Johansson and the (BDS) Politics of Celebrity Ambassadors."

Here's some updates from Commentary and People Magazine:

Demonizing Israel; Demonizing ScarJo : http://t.co/AbDsGgsCfs @Commentary

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) January 27, 2014

Watch Scarlett Johansson's sexy Super Bowl ad for SodaStream http://t.co/CzPOk6uCDF

— People magazine (@peoplemag) January 27, 2014

Alabama Crimson Tide Quarterback A.J. McCarron Slams Grammys as 'Pretty Demonic'

Well, they we're that bad after all.

But see USA Today, "AJ McCarron was pretty creeped out by the Grammy Awards."

And at SB Nation, "AJ McCarron is scared of Katy Perry."

Is it just me or are some of the Grammy performances so far seem to be really demonic?? Looks like there is a lot of evil in the world..

— AJ McCarron (@10AJMcCarron) January 27, 2014

Rand Paul’s Paleolibertarian Patrimony

Dave Swindle used to repeatedly warn against backing Rand Paul, arguing that he was a carbon copy of his father Ron. See, for example, "The One Question Conservative Rand Paul Supporters Need to Answer," and "Was Sarah Palin Snookered Into Endorsing a Stealth Anti-Israel Candidate?"

But I thought he gave a great speech to the Heritage Foundation last year, and I've mentioned my possible support for a Rand Paul presidential bid in 2016. As always, the proof will be how genuine his views turn out to be. That being said, you know hard-left outlets like the New York Times would love to destroy him, so take this exegesis of Paul's ideological "patrimony" with the usual grain of salt.

See, "Rand Paul’s Mixed Inheritance":

As Rand Paul test-markets a presidential candidacy and tries to broaden his appeal, he is also trying to take libertarianism, an ideology long on the fringes of American politics, into the mainstream. Midway through his freshman term, he has become a prominent voice in Washington’s biggest debates — on government surveillance, spending and Middle East policy.

In the months since he commanded national attention and bipartisan praise for his 13-hour filibuster against the Obama administration’s drone strike program, Mr. Paul has impressed Republican leaders with his staying power, in part because of the stumbles of potential rivals and despite some of his own.

“Senator Paul is a credible national candidate,” said Mitt Romney, who ran for president as the consummate insider in 2012. “He has tapped into the growing sentiment that government has become too large and too intrusive.” In an email, Mr. Romney added that the votes and dollars Mr. Paul would attract from his father’s supporters could help make him “a serious contender for the Republican nomination.”

But if Mr. Paul reaps the benefits of his father’s name and history, he also must contend with the burdens of that patrimony. And as he has become a politician in his own right and now tours the circuit of early primary states, Mr. Paul has been calibrating how fully he embraces some libertarian precepts.

“I want to be judged by who I am, not by a relationship,” Mr. Paul, a self-described libertarian Republican, said in an interview last week. “I have wanted to develop my own way, and my own, I guess, connections to other intellectual movements myself when I came to Washington.”

Coming of age in America’s first family of libertarianism — he calls his father, a three-time presidential aspirant, “my hero” — Rand Paul was steeped in a narrow, rightward strain of the ideology, according to interviews, documents, and a review of speeches, articles and books.

Some of its adherents have formulated provocative theories on race, class and American history, and routinely voice beliefs that go far beyond the antiwar, anti-big-government, pro-civil-liberties message of the broader movement that has attracted legions of college students, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and Tea Party activists.

That worldview, often called “paleolibertarianism,” emerges from the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama, started with money raised by the senior Mr. Paul. It is named for the Austrian émigré who became an intellectual godfather of modern libertarian economic thinking, devoted to an unrestricted free market.

Some scholars affiliated with the Mises Institute have combined dark biblical prophecy with apocalyptic warnings that the nation is plunging toward economic collapse and cultural ruin. Others have championed the Confederacy. One economist, while faulting slavery because it was involuntary, suggested in an interview that the daily life of the enslaved was “not so bad — you pick cotton and sing songs.”

Mr. Paul says he abhors racism, has never visited the institute and should not have to answer for the more extreme views of all of those in the libertarian orbit.

“If you were to say to someone, ‘Well, you’re a conservative Republican or you are a Christian conservative Republican, does that mean that you think when the earthquake happened in Haiti that was God’s punishment for homosexuality?’ Well, no,” he said in an earlier interview. “It loses its sense of proportion if you have to go through and defend every single person about whom someone says is associated with you.”

Still, his 2011 book, “The Tea Party Goes to Washington,” praises some institute scholars, recommending their work and the institute website.

And he has sometimes touched on themes far from the mainstream. He has cautioned in the past of a plan to create a North American Union with a single currency for the United States, Mexico and Canada, and a stealth United Nations campaign to confiscate civilian handguns. He has repeatedly referred to the “tyranny” of the federal government.

Since becoming a national figure, Mr. Paul has generally stayed on safer ground. His denunciations of government intrusion on Americans’ privacy have been joined by lawmakers in both parties and have resonated with the public — though no other member of Congress as yet has joined him in his planned class-action suit against the National Security Agency.

He has renounced many of the isolationist tenets central to libertarianism, backed away from his longstanding objections to parts of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and teamed with members of the Congressional Black Caucus in calling for an easing of drug-sentencing laws. He recently unveiled a plan for investment in distressed inner cities.

Much of that is in keeping with the left-right alliance Mr. Paul promotes, an alternative to what he dismisses as a “mushy middle.” Such partnerships, he says, “include people who firmly do believe in the same things, that happen to serve in different parties.”

In recent months, potential rivals for leadership of the Republican Party have depicted him as an extremist. Before the recent investigations into political abuses by his administration, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said Mr. Paul’s “strain of libertarianism” was “very dangerous.” And Senator Ted Cruz of Texas told donors in New York that in a national campaign Mr. Paul could not escape Ron Paul’s ideological history.

Mr. Paul is not the first political son encumbered by a father’s legacy, but his mantle is unusually heavy. He has been his father’s apprentice, aide, surrogate and, finally, successor. Side-by-side portraits of father and son adorn one wall in his Senate conference room...

Still more at the link. The piece goes into some detail on the "fringe" paleos like Lew Rockwell (who had a thing for Cindy Sheehan sometime back) and Murray Rothbard. And it mentions how Rand, right before announcing his run for office in 2009, he appeared on nutjob Alex Jones' radio program. There's a lot of unsavory conspiracists and racists in those swamps, and frankly, just being Rand Paul he may never fully escape them.

Grammy Awards 2014

I watched. Interesting how the homosexual weddings didn't happen until after 11:00pm.

I enjoyed it, however, despite my bitching about our depraved culture.

At Rolling Stone, "Daft Punk, Macklemore, Lorde Win Big at 2014 Grammy Awards."

Also at LAT, "Grammys 2014: Daft Punk wins album and record of the year."

And at NYT, "Grammys Laud Giants and Upstarts," and "Critic's Notebook: A Night of Music Marked by Some Wild Mood Swings":

Daft Punk’s performance was one of the night’s more coherent collaborations. The group enlisted studio musicians, including the guitarist Nile Rodgers from the disco-era hitmakers Chic, to make “Random Access Memories,” which was named album of the year and best dance/electronica album. Mr. Rodgers rejoined them, as did the song’s vocalist, Pharrell Williams — winner of producer of the year, nonclassical — to perform “Get Lucky” with Stevie Wonder sitting in and snippets from Chic and Mr. Wonder that meshed with the song’s disco nostalgia; the celebrity musicians got up and danced.

More, at the Hollywood Reporter, "Grammys: Macklemore and Madonna Praised by GLAAD For Mass Wedding (Exclusive)," and "Trent Reznor Tweets 'F--- You' to Grammys After His Performance Is Cut Short."

VIDEO: Via Becca J. Lower.

Rough Patch for Uber Service’s Challenge to Taxis

I blogged on this earlier, "Uber Ride Service Sabotages the Competition."

And now at NYT:

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s Travis Kalanick versus the world, and recently the world seems to be winning.

Mr. Kalanick, who is brash and aggressive even by the standards of Silicon Valley, created Uber four years ago to blow up the traditional taxi business. In more than 60 cities, from San Francisco to Berlin, it is doing just that.

Anyone with a smartphone can use Uber’s software to get a ride. No more standing on the corner in the rain, trying desperately to conjure up something that is not there. For that achievement, Uber is valued at $4 billion.

Suddenly, however, Mr. Kalanick is a bit besieged. Uber is being sued by its drivers, who say it is stealing their tips. Competitors are pressing it from all sides. Celebrity riders like Salman Rushdie and Jessica Seinfeld have had gripes too, usually about pricing.

Much worse, there have been questions about the quality of the drivers, made more urgent after one here in San Francisco hit an immigrant family in a crosswalk on New Year’s Eve, killing a 6-year-old. Her death has provoked the first wrongful-death lawsuit against Uber, which is expected to be filed on Monday...

More at that top link.

Broken Dreams of My Father

Sarah Marie Brenner tweets, "Dr. Gina Loudon notes radical shift in psychology of tyrannical."

Wow. Must read from @drginaloudon about her father - a #progressive - who is disappointed in her. http://t.co/Ebp77e6iqU #tcot #teaparty
— SaraMarieBrennerShow (@saramarietweets) January 27, 2014

HSBC Cash Withdrawal Limits Spark Fears of Banking Crisis

At Director Blue.

An amazing piece, and I checked Google for more information, and found this at BBC, "HSBC imposes restrictions on large cash withdrawals."

Americans are not going to go for currency and banking restrictions. This ain't Greece or Cyprus. You'll see a huge political backlash. People won't stand for that shit.

Playboy's Miss January 2014 Roos van Montfort

At Guyism, "ROOS VAN MONTFORT, PLAYBOY’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY PLAYMATE, IS JUST RIDICULOUSLY SEXY."

Ezra Klein Is Joining Vox Media as Web Journalism Asserts Itself

From David Carr, at the New York Times.

Obviously, I'm not impressed.

William Jacobson nails it, at Legal Insurrection, "Ezra Klein aims to fix the news."

Read it all at the link, as they say.

And see Twitchy, "Fact-challenged liberal blogger Ezra Klein promises new way of delivering news."

Lindsay Vonn Replaced on Olympic Team

Seen on Twitter, lol.

Lindsay Vonn is replaced on Olympic team by Barack Obama since nobody has taken a country downhill faster. pic.twitter.com/7TbfpW6QBw

— LB Calloway (@leeway63) January 27, 2014

And at Deadline, "NBC In Talks With Lindsey Vonn For Winter Olympics Coverage," and NYT, "Tiger Woods’s Schedule Is Unexpectedly Open After Lindsey Vonn’s Season-Ending Injury."

Fence to Come Down Around World Trade Center

At the Wall Street Journal, "In WTC Milestone, Fence to Come Down: After 13 Years, Fencing Around 16-Acre Site to Be Removed":

The redevelopment of the World Trade Center is expected to pass a major milestone in 2014, but one that will be more low-key than others ticked off in recent years such as the opening of the 9/11 Memorial or completing the spire atop One World Trade Center.

One of the big events of this year: dismantling a blue fence.

For 13 years, the 16-acre site has been fenced off from the rest of Downtown as the rebuilding process has continued. The memorial opened two years ago, but access has been limited to ticketed visitors who pass through the fence on a narrow walkway.

In 2014, portions of the fence will be dismantled, enabling people to go back and forth freely between the memorial and parts of downtown, according to Joe Daniels, president of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. He said he is "100%" sure it will happen this year, perhaps as early as May when the 9/11 Memorial Museum on the site is scheduled to open...

Keep reading.

FLASHBACK: "Faith, Freedom, and Memory: Report From Ground Zero, September 11, 2010."

The Not So Golden State

At the Economist.

For all Silicon Valley's vibrancy, California can be a lousy place to do business http://t.co/pvv9ZJ6FST pic.twitter.com/BdieOPvz7K

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 26, 2014

Rule 5 on #Grammys Sunday

I haven't done this for a couple of weeks, so what the heck.

Here's Rosie Jones and Sabine Jemeljanova.

Now over at Dana Pico's, "Rule 5 Blogging: Even Switzerland has an Army!"

And see Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……are flowers that will soon grow in the Arctic because Someone Else refuses to turn the heat down to 60 during cold snaps, you might just be a Warmist."

Also from Doug Hagin, "DALEYGATOR DALEYBABE ANNET MAHENDRU."

At Knuckledraggin', "Your Good Morning Girl."

And see Proof Positive, "Best of the Web* Linkaround," and "Pro Bowl Today."

Also at 90 Miles From Tyranny, "Hot Pick of the Late Night," and "Bug Out Location Porn."

At Odie's, "A Tip From An Old Man ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

And at the Hostages, "BBF, West Virginia Style."

Now over to iOWNTHEWORLD, "People Are Ignorant of News – Blog Readers Have Superior Knowledge."

At Soylent, "OverNighty: Jugs."

More from Ms. EBL, "The 12th Man won't be at MetLife Stadium..."

Orbitup has "My Hot List Features Nearly Nude Jennifer Lopez!"

And from Barking Moonbat, "ON STAGE AND IN FILM SINCE 1944 AND BEFORE, AND STILL AT IT. ANGELA LANSBURY, GODDESS OF THE 40S."

From Drunken Stepfather, "Steplinks of the Day."

At BCF, "USA: Sexism defense of Wendy Davis is attempt to give her an easier double standard."

And from A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, "The Friday Pin Up."

Now at Wine, Women, and Politics, "Good gawd!"

Blackmailers, "Sad Man’s Tongue Has a Bunch of New Stuff."

Also at Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart (on Friday). Not sure where Thursday went...Cora Skinner..."

And from Becca J. Lower, "Hard to Believe this Former Supermodel’s Turning 40 (Photos)."

At Goodstuff's, "GOODSTUFF'S BLOGGING MAGAZINE (123rd Issue)."

Finally, at Diogene's Middle Finger, "The Perfect Liberal Democrat."

And drop your links in the comments if I've missed you and I'll get you linked up at the next roundup!

Black Dude Darion Marcus Aguilar Identified as Gunman in Maryland Mall Shooting

Well, this doesn't fit the far-right tea party Second Amendment profile.

A black dude with an Hispanic surname.

At the Heavy, "Darion Marcus Aguilar, Columbia Mall Shooter: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know."

#BREAKING Howard County Police have released a photo of 19YO Darion Aguilar, the Columbia mall shooting suspect pic.twitter.com/dWAAzPnvbx

— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) January 26, 2014

34 Homosexual Couples to Get Married at the Grammys

Make no mistake on the numbers. It's definitely a mass wedding. A mass of homosexuals.

.@RSMcCain The wedding singers! 34 same-sex couples to get married at the Grammys http://t.co/rSD8Wnn4FK via @BeccaJLower cc. @BobBelvedere
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 26, 2014

Look, if you're libertarian it's all good. Homosexual marriage is fine. For me, just don't ram it up my ass. To say nothing of my children.
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 26, 2014

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Nite Funnies," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

More at Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Gone With The Wendy."

CARTOON CREDIT: William Warren.

Five Performances to Look Out For at Tonight's Grammys

At WSJ, "Grammy Awards 2014: Five Performances to Look Out For."

Now I'm debating whether I should even watch. This whole mass homosexual wedding is about to make me puke.

ADDED: From iJustine, "GET READY WITH ME: THE GRAMMYS!" She's a fun lady.

Apple iPhones to Come Out With Bigger Screens

This is great. I really love my iPhone.

At WSJ, "New Models, Expected in Second Half, Won't Include Curved Displays" (at Google):

Facing competition from rivals offering smartphones with bigger screens, Apple Inc. AAPL -1.82%  is planning larger displays on a pair of iPhones due for release this year, people familiar with the situation said.

The people said Apple plans an iPhone model with a screen larger than 4½ inches measured diagonally, and a second version with a display bigger than 5 inches. Until now, Apple's largest phone has been the 4-inch display on the iPhone 5.

Both new models are expected to feature metal casings similar to what is used on the current iPhone 5S, with Apple expected to scrap the plastic exterior used in the iPhone 5C, these people said.

The phones, expected in the second half, won't include a curved display, a feature recently introduced by rivals including Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE +0.62%  , the people said. They cautioned that Apple's plans weren't final and that the company could change course.

The smaller of the two models is further along in development, and is being prepared for mass production, the people said. The larger-screen version is still in preliminary development, they said.

pple declined to comment.

The plans for larger iPhones come as Apple is losing market share to rivals who offer bigger screens. Those models have proved popular as more people use the handsets to play games, watch video or surf the Web. Samsung's 5-inch Galaxy S4 and 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 3 are among its best-selling models.

Bigger screens are particularly popular in China, an important market for Apple's growth, where Chinese manufacturers offer smartphones with larger screens at a lower price than the iPhone. Apple this month started offering iPhones through the country's largest carrier, China Mobile Ltd. 0941.HK -1.10%

"Apple definitely needs a larger-screen smartphone soon, particularly to address the demand in the emerging markets," said Canalys analyst Jessica Kwee. Canalys estimated that nearly one-fourth of smartphones shipped world-wide in the third quarter, about 60 million phones, had displays that were 5 inches or larger.

Queen Latifah to Officiate a Mass Homosexual Wedding at Tonight's Grammys

Is this really necessary?

At NewsBusters, "BREAKING: CBS Putting a Gay-Marriage Protest In Middle of Grammy Performance of Leftist 'Same Love' Song."

More at Memeorandum.

And to think, I was actually looking forward to watching it tonight. But they had to go and inject far left-wing politics. No wonder people just tune out of the pop culture's moral bankruptcy. A mass homosexual wedding on national TV? Mindboggling. And depraved.

Bob Schieffer's Interview with Texas Senator Ted Cruz

"Face the Nation," via Memeorandum.

Video here, "Ted Cruz's State of the Union wish list," and here, "Will Sen. Ted Cruz run for president?"

Now We Have Leftist 'Wheelchair Truthers' Questioning Greg Abbott's Disability

Seems astonishing, but just a natural development on the regressive left.

At Twitchy, "Conspiracy alert: Greg Abbott ‘wheelchair truthers’ actually exist."

I thought the discourse had devolved as much as it could. "Wheelchair truthers" proved me wrong.

— Nope, Matt Testa (@mdrache) January 25, 2014

They're evil, Amy. MT @amylutz4 Refuse to believe there's such thing as Abbott wheelchair truthers. People aren't THAT stupid, right? RIGHT?

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 26, 2014

Muammar Gaddafi's Rape Chamber

Well, he died with a knife up his ass, so there's that.

Inside Gaddafi's sex chamber where he raped girls and boys - as young as 14 http://t.co/YeSByRIrwQ

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) January 26, 2014

Lawsuit Challenges Union Power, Rules on Tenure, Seniority and 'Last Hired, First Fired...'

The problem with this is that administrators are corrupt and they'll abuse their power to fire teachers they don't like.

Having said that, it's obscene that union hacks charged with sexually abusing students can't be fired. And for that reason, I'm for overturning union power.

At LAT, "Lawsuit takes on California teachers' job protections":

Local school districts, state legislators and even a California governor have tried to limit teachers' job protections, among the most generous in the country. Efforts have all failed to rid public schools of ineffective teachers by making it easier to fire them and tougher for them to gain tenure and by stripping them of seniority rights.

Now proponents are taking their fight to another venue: the courtroom.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge will hear arguments this week over the constitutionality of laws that govern California's teacher tenure rules, seniority policies and the dismissal process — an overhaul of which could upend controversial job security for instructors.

The lawsuit, filed by the nonprofit, advocacy group Students Matter, contends that these education laws are a violation of the Constitution's equal protection guarantee because they do not ensure that all students have access to an adequate education.

Vergara versus California, filed on behalf of nine students and their families, seeks to revamp a dismissal process that the plaintiffs say is too costly and time consuming, lengthen the time it takes for instructors to gain tenure and dismantle the "last hired, first fired" policies that fail to consider teacher effectiveness.

The lawsuit aims to protect the rights of students, teachers and school districts against a "gross disparity" in educational opportunity, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.

The debate over teacher effectiveness has become increasingly contentious in recent years as school systems, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, try to link students' standardized test scores to instructors' evaluations, rather than keep using reviews in which no test data are included and nearly all teachers are rated as satisfactory. The dismissal process also has come under fire in recent years for the difficulty it causes school districts that seek to fire teachers accused of misconduct against students.

Teachers unions have vigorously defended tenure, seniority and dismissal rules, calling them crucial safeguards and essential to recruiting and retaining quality instructors. The lawsuit, they contend, is misguided and ignores the true causes of problems in education, such as drops in state funding.

"If you give teachers resources and appropriate class sizes, principals and superintendents that support them — they will be successful in increasing student achievement," said Jim Finberg, an attorney representing the California Teachers Assn.

Finberg said wealthy benefactors and special interests are attempting to use their money to force their policy views on the state.
"California teachers care deeply about students and welcome a policy debate on how best to improve California schools," he said. "But that debate should be in the Legislature, not in a courtroom."

The plaintiffs, meanwhile, will try to prove that the laws themselves prevent administrators from removing ineffective teachers, thus lowering the quality of the teacher pool and contributing to an inadequate education for some students.
And the courthouse is just the place to do that, their attorneys said.

"The job of the court is to make sure the laws don't hurt kids," said Marcellus McRae, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Heterosexual Figure Skaters

I saw Mediate tweet this out, so I said "WTF," and watched it.

It was okay. Good for a couple of laughs. Your mileage may vary.

See, "SNL Cold Open Features Team USA's Sochi Olympics Plan B: Heterosexual Figure Skating Team."

Olympic Athletes Warned on Team USA Gear

At the Wall Street Journal, "Olympic Athletes Cautioned on Wearing Team USA Clothing Outside Venues: USOC Memo Warns Athletes Amid Security Concerns":

Own a piece of American history with the Limited-Edition #TeamUSA Opening Ceremony Cardigan http://t.co/8HsNbJfg3e pic.twitter.com/8yCigDSKoZ

— Ralph Lauren (@RalphLauren) January 23, 2014

The U.S. unveiled more of its Winter Olympic uniforms Thursday, but officials are cautioning athletes to keep theirs under wraps outside the games' venues.

A memo sent to athletes by the U.S. Olympic Committee cautions them to avoid wearing team colors too prominently in Sochi amid heightened concerns about security in the southern Russian resort town.

"The U.S. Department of State has advised that wearing conspicuous Team USA clothing in non-accredited areas may put your personal safety at greater risk," says the memo, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The memo details other steps that athletes can take to ensure their safety while in Sochi, including enrolling in a State Department traveler program.

Greg Bretz, a snowboard half-pipe rider preparing for his second Olympics, said in an interview Thursday that U.S. Olympic officials "have told us not to wear our USA gear outside of the venues," but added, "I have so much faith in the United States and our safety that I'm not too worried about it."

Yeah. No worries. They've got a ring of steel around the area. It's outside the area where you'll probably be blown to bits.

'Repeat GOP candidate Mia Love, who would be the first African-American Republican woman in Congress if she won, is now the biggest early favorite to become a House freshman in 2015...'

And she's an awesome lady.

At Instapundit, "MIA LOVE UPDATE: National Journal: Mia Love most likely challenger to win House seat in 2014."

The 2 Teenagers Who Run the Wildly Popular Twitter Feed @HistoryInPics

At the Atlantic, "Meet Xavier Di Petta and Kyle Cameron, ages 17 and 19, whose ability to build a massive audience from nothing may be unparalleled in media today."

They're social media entrepreneurs. I see them RT'd in my timeline all the time, although I like Michael Beschloss myself.

The last photo taken of Hachikō, the dog who waited 9 years after the death of his master until he too passed away. pic.twitter.com/w6NLZjDrV2

— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) January 23, 2014

Uber Ride Service Sabotages the Competition

Wow. This is pretty hardcore.

At Tech Crunch, "Black Car Competitor Accuses Uber of DDoS-Style Attack; Uber Admits Tactics Are 'Too Aggressive'." (At Memeorandum.)

And Valley Wag, "Uber's Dirty Trick Campaign Against NYC Competition Came From the Top":

You probably haven't heard of Gett, and Uber would love to keep it that way. Gett provides an almost identical service—order a black car pickup from your phone, no cash needed—but lacks Uber's high profile or mammoth war chest. It also, crucially, uses a flat pricing system, without "surge" multipliers. During a recent snowstorm in New York, Uber's prices were an unpredictable "3x" of normal, while Gett just tacked on a $15 charge. It's an underdog in every way.

But Uber considers Gett a threat: over the past few weeks, Uber employees have been posing as pedestrians, creating Gett accounts for the sole purpose of scheduling and then canceling Gett rides. The result is clear: wasted time for Gett drivers, fewer available rides for Gett users, and general disarray for the whole service.

And it's coming from the top brass at Uber NYC.

Screenshots provided to Valleywag show multiple instances of Uber staffers using dummy Gett accounts for the sole purpose of canceling rides as a diversion. This includes Uber's New York General Manager, Josh Mohrer, who ordered and canceled at least twenty Gett rides from December 30th, 2013 to January 14th of this year. Uber's Operations and Logistics Manager, Jeanine Mendez, faked three ride requests in two days—Uber's Community Manager Kimiko Ninomaya faked seven in a single day. After these rides had been canceled, Uber texted the affected drivers in an attempt to recruit them—and after all the frustration they'd had with Gett, it'd seem like a sweet offer.

Altogether, at least 13 Uber employees of varying seniority took part in the scheme to derail Gett: Community Manager Amy Perlman, Operations Manager Andrew Salzberg, Operations and Logistics Manager Benjamin Stein, Operations and Logistics Manager Chad Dobbs, Community Manager Elliot Beltzer, Social Media Strategist Jake Langbecker, Community Manager Jake Naughtrip, Operations and Logistics Manager Kyle Thomas, Community Manager Michael Fine, Operations Manager Shalini Challa, Community Manager Randy Berridge. Uber sure has an interesting notion of community.

#ObamaCare Forces Purge of Doctors From Medicare Advantage

I wrote about this in November, "UnitedHealth Group Purges Doctors Amid Massive #ObamaCare Funding Cuts."

And now at Moe Lane's, "More gutting of Medicare Advantage doctor networks. #obamacare."

Dear @AmerMedicalAssn Re: your support of Ocare, Way to go. RT Thousands of docs cut from Medicare Advantage plans http://t.co/iJtmpW2JkS

— SheilaKihne (@SheilaKihne) January 26, 2014

Extreme Cold Force Super Bowl Date ‎Change

At London's Daily Mail, "U.S braces itself for coldest month of the century with yet another Arctic blast as fears grow for Super Bowl Sundays."

Also at ABC News, "Super Bowl 2014: NFL Suggests Winter Weather Could Force Date Change." And at the Chicago Tribune, "Super Bowl XLVIII: Date subject to change."

Vintage Pornography Being Restored and Refreshed for New Generation

Oh brother.

It's not like we don't have enough fresh porn for the new generation as it is. Now we need to restore and refresh old porn for the new generation?

At the New York Times, "Smut, Refreshed for a New Generation":

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Between a detention center and a post office here, there’s a large, unremarkable building on a corner. Other than a few parked cars near a loading dock, there’s not much life outside its off-white walls. But walk through the rickety front door and up the concrete stairs, and what’s inside makes the old Times Square look like Mayberry: thousands of boxes filled to overflowing with sexually explicit films and artifacts.

Welcome to the home of Vinegar Syndrome, founded in 2012 by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson to catalog, restore and help release old X-rated films for the home video and theatrical markets. (“Vinegar syndrome” refers to what film smells like when it starts to decay.) The company, which takes up only about a third of the 47,000-square-foot building, plans to introduce a new generation to lost and forgotten films from what’s considered the golden age of American hard-core filmmaking, roughly 1969 to 1986.

“Yes, the films are X-rated,” Mr. Emerson said. “But many of them are interesting and fascinating once you get into them. These films are time capsules.”

"Time capsules." Real highbrow time capsules, I'm sure.

Keep reading.

Employees at Zumiez, Skate Apparel and Gear Store, Killed in Maryland Mall Shooting

At the Baltimore Sun, "Three people killed in shooting at the Columbia Mall":

Gunfire pierced the Saturday morning bustle at the Mall in Columbia, a gathering place for many in the planned suburban community, sending shoppers racing for cover as two store employees were fatally shot by a man whom police said then killed himself.

Howard County police said the two employees at the skate shop Zumiez, Brianna Benlolo, 21, of College Park, Md., and Tyler Johnson, 25, of Ellicott City, Md. were killed shortly after 11 a.m.

Police, who did not release information on the identity of the shooter, said he was found just outside the store with a shotgun and a large amount of ammunition.

Five people, including one who was shot in the foot, were treated at Howard County General Hospital and released. The other four individuals were not being treated for gunshot wounds, but for injuries related to panic at the scene.

One witness said the gunman appeared to be between 18 and 21 years old and was wearing khaki pants and a white shirt.

"He looked straight at me... He pointed the gun at me and looked at my eyes," said Shafon Robinson, who had run out from a bathroom near the first floor food court after she heard two gunshots coming from Zumiez on the second floor.

Robinson's husband, Terrance Lilly, screamed at her to get down, and when she did, she said a shot sailed over her head and into the wall behind her. Two shots were fired in her direction, she said.

Her husband tried to jump over a table to grab the kids — the couple was at the mall with their three kids as well as a girlfriend of Robinson and her two children — and herd them outside to safety.

"He saved the kids," she said, but broke three bones in his face as he tried to leap over the table.

Also at Fire Andrea Mitchell, "Brianna Benlolo and Tyler Johnson dead in Mall in Columbia shooting," and "Zumiez statement on Mall in Columbia shooting."

Also at CNN, "Police: No motive yet in mall shooting."

Sexy Saturday Rule 5

With Gisele.

She's doing some work for Playboy (on Twitter and YouTube).

RELATED: At the Nug, "Two Girls One Gallery." (Via Linkiest.)

More from Bro My God, "EXCUSE ME BUT YOUR HTOL ARE VERY DISTRACTING."

Also at Bro Bible, "37 Hot Pics of Girls with Legs for Days."

See also the Plunder Guide, "Nikki Du Plessis is HOT!"

At Blackmailers Don't Shoot, "Rule 5 Thursday, Selena Gomez Is Single Edition." And the Other McCain, "Selena Gomez Available."

And Knuckledraggin', "Wirecutter – The Early Years."

And the Chive, "It’s too cold, let’s go on bikini vacation (38 photos)."

Finally, at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See……is an evil fossil fueled machine needed to ride over snow created by heat causing fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist."

I should have more Rule 5 tomorrow, perhaps even a big roundup.

Barack's Pogrom: The Rising Tide of Hatred Against the 'Evil' One Percent

You gotta read this letter at WSJ, from Tom Perkins, "Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?" (at Memeorandum):

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay....

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

Actually, Kristallnacht is a pretty good analogy. I wrote about the emerging evil in the Bay Area day before yesterday, "Unhinged Leftists Escalate 'Google Bus' Protests to Home of Driverless Car Designer Anthony Levandowski." You're likely to get hurt with people like this, if not killed. They went to the guy's house and knocked on his door! And this Levandowski guy's probably Jewish!

And here's yesterday's front-page story at the Los Angeles Times, "Tech industry in San Francisco addresses backlash":

With the cost of living here at levels that almost no one but the most affluent can afford, protesters have taken to the streets to block luxury shuttles ferrying tech workers to Silicon Valley companies.

In an incident signaling growing tensions, a protester hurled a rock through the window of a Google bus in Oakland in December. On Wednesday, demonstrators stood outside the Berkeley home of a Google engineer, protesting the company's work on military robots and the tech industry's role in driving up rents and evictions in San Francisco.

See all the responses at Memeorandum.

Here's idiot Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog, "Look, I'm not sure about tactics like slashing Google buses' tires, but if Perkins is going to have the bad taste to equate his fellow richies with the victims of the Holocaust, tell me: Who's the Hitler in all this? Where's the state power?"

Actually, look no farther than the White House for your state leader. Herr Barack has been exhorting his progressive Brownshirts to violence since taking office. [Before taking office, actually.]

Everything is proceeding as conservatives warned back in 2008. See, "It's the 1930s, and You Are There."

And it's all coming to a head this year, "Obama to make inequality the defining issue of 2014."

Bring it you leftist scum. Just f-king bring it.

Republicans Approve Changes to Presidential Nominating Process

This is interesting.

At NYT, "Republicans Vote to Streamline Nominating Process":

WASHINGTON — The Republican National Committee moved Friday to consolidate its presidential nominating process in 2016, a pre-emptive effort to avoid a drawn-out campaign that many in the party say could imperil their effort to reclaim the White House.

“We have been saying for months that we were no longer going to sit around and allow ourselves to slice and dice for six months,” Reince Priebus, the party chairman, said in remarks hailing the vote on the rule changes.

The package, which cleared the 168-member committee with just nine dissenting votes, left Iowa and New Hampshire in the traditional roles of first caucus and first primary, followed by South Carolina and Nevada nominating contests, all in February. Other states are allowed to hold their primaries and caucuses starting on March 1.

After the first two weeks in March, states can hold winner-take-all elections, which will deliver large troves of delegates and are intended to yield a prospective nominee early in the process. States that violate the new rules would forfeit most of their delegates and alternates to the national convention.

The most important change to the 2016 primary calendar was not voted on here, at the party’s winter meeting, but will probably be taken up when the committee meets later this year: holding the national nominating convention sooner, in June or early July. Doing that would give the eventual presidential nominee earlier access to campaign dollars that are allowed to be spent only after a nomination is made official at the convention.

“If Mitt Romney had been nominated on July 1 rather than Sept. 1, his chances of being president would have been increased,” said Ron Kaufman, the Massachusetts Republican committeeman and a confidant of Mr. Romney’s.

Pushing back the primary calendar into February is a good move, as well as the later winner-take-all primaries. But it's a bad idea to hold the convention in June. You want to hold it as late as possible, so the nominee can ride the crest of a bump into the October debates on into election day. See Matthew Dowd for more on that, "New RNC Rules Changes: One Big Misstep."

Still more at Politico, "Republican National Committee easily passes 2016 calendar tweaks."

Menacing Air Quality in California's Central Valley

Most of the left's environmental memes are baloney, but I lived in Fresno for years, and the air quality is often terrible.

So I don't doubt this piece at all, at LAT, "A menacing air in the Central Valley":

FRESNO — On bad-air days here in the Central Valley, school officials hoist red flags to warn parents and pupils that being outside is officially deemed “unhealthful for all groups.”

This winter, though, the most polluted on record, schools have not only raised red flags. On several days, they have had to send out notices saying the red flags should really be purple—indicating “very unhealthful” air — if only they had them. But such warnings have been be so rare that schools don't even have the flags designating the most extreme conditions.

Of course, parents could just look at the sky itself.

From Stockton to Bakersfield, a haze of chemical-laced particles has tinted the air a rusty gray all winter. In the evenings there's a charcoal stripe across the horizon. The Sierra Nevada hasn't been visible for more than a month.

A high-pressure ridge, four miles high, sits off the West Coast, blocking Pacific storms from cleaning the air in the Central Valley. Pollution levels have spiked across California, but nowhere is it as bad as in this agricultural region.

With no rain since Dec. 7, fine particles that can embed in lungs and enter the bloodstream build up in an ever-darkening sky. Meteorologists don't expect the weather to shift until at least the end of the month.

When Kellie Townsend returned from her Christmas vacation at the coast, she knew right away something was wrong.
"As soon as I drove into the valley, I could feel a burning in my throat," she said.

Townsend, who works in the Earth and Environmental Sciences program at Fresno State, heeded air board warnings to stay inside. Her neighbors seemed to do the same. The only people she saw out were gardeners with leaf-blowers. For exercise there was her Lindy Hop dance class. One weekend she went to the mountains for a dose of fresh air.

But after three weeks, on a recent balmy day, the 42-year-old returned to running up and down hills near a walking trail. She purposely didn't check the air rating — which was a red alert with about three times the amount of fine particles found in air considered healthful.

"I'm scared. I can feel that something isn't right. I can feel the tightness in my chest," she said. "But I get tense when I'm inside too long. I told my husband, 'My head feels chaotic inside.' I know what will happen — I will be coughing tonight. Maybe the damage is long term. But what do I do?"

People who live in the Central Valley are used to bad air. Surrounded by mountains on three sides, home to industrial agriculture and oil fields, and with most of the state's long-distance big-rig traffic driving through on Interstate 5 and state Highway 99, the region historically has had some of the worst pollution in the nation.

Warnings about spikes usually go out in the summer and are directed at sensitive groups: children, older people and those with respiratory problems in a region where the asthma rate is three times higher than the national average.

Now the amount of fine particles — known as PM-2.5 — in the air is so high that a new group is affected: outdoorsy adults with no health problems. On many days, the air district, tracking hourly readings, sends out an alert: "Real Time Activity Risk Warning."
As the weeks stretch on, people are ignoring the warnings.

Keep reading.

One of the things that always tripped me out about Fresno was all the agricultural burning. Drive around the Valley and you see agricultural fires all the time. Sometimes you just breathe the smoke. So, yeah, air quality up there is definitely an issue.

Charles Barkley: 'I use the n-word...'

Here's Barkley with Brooke Baldwin:



And he's on record as being a big n-word aficionado, at Big Sports, "CHARLES BARKLEY: I'LL CONTINUE TO USE 'N-WORD' AROUND MY BLACK, WHITE FRIENDS."

Plus, "RICHARD SHERMAN: 'THUG' IS 'ACCEPTED WAY OF CALLING SOMEBODY THE N-WORD'."

F-king hypocrites.

Crisis in Kiev

At Bloomberg, "Ukraine's Capital Descends Into Chaos":

The biggest nation in Eastern Europe is rapidly sliding into anarchy as the world watches from the sidelines. In Kiev, Ukraine, political activists are disappearing, journalists are being shot at and government-paid thugs are hunting down protesters.

Events escalated after the Ukrainian parliament, seeking to end protests over the government's decision to scuttle an association pact with the European Union, passed a set of harsh laws last week clamping down on the freedoms of speech and assembly. The draconian measures enraged a motley crew of soccer fans and right-wing militants, who engaged in a sustained battle with police attempting to bar entry to the government quarter. The police used tear gas, rubber bullets and noise grenades, sometimes tying stones to the latter to inflict more damage. Rioters countered with sticks and makeshift shields, and before too long with real shields seized from the police. Both sides threw Molotov cocktails and stones.

Eyewitnesses said that police seemed to be intentionally shooting at cameramen and photographers. No exception was made for pro-government publications and TV channels: The goal appeared to be to prevent footage of the fighting from finding an audience. Some journalists, like this brave Polish TV reporter, nevertheless managed to document the street war.

It was only a matter of time before someone got killed. On Jan. 22, riot police fatally shot two protesters, Sergei Nigoyan and Mikhail Zhiznevsky, on Grushevsky street in downtown Kiev. One well-known activist, Yuri Verbitsky, was found dead in the woods outside the capital. He and a colleague, Igor Lutsenko, had been taken to the woods from a Kiev hospital as part of a broader action in which police and plain-clothed thugs rounded up wounded rioters. Lutsenko, who says he was severely beaten, made his way back to the city. Police say Verbitsky died from exposure, not from the obvious injuries found on his body.

Normally a safe, friendly city, Kiev is now terrorized by groups of thugs, who freely admit they are being paid about $25 a night to scare and beat people who look like protesters.

It's hard to imagine all this happening in a 21st century European city...

More at the link.

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Activists seize government ministry building in Kiev as protests spread across Ukraine after peace talks reach stalemate," and the Independent UK, "Ukraine protests: police officer shot dead as violence continues in Kiev despite 'concessions'."

You Don't Have to Compromise Convictions to Be Compassionate

I have no idea if this is an actual Phil Robertson quote or not. No matter. I like the sentiment, via Twitter.

Mark Steyn Will Not Kiss Judicial Robes

While Steyn is not out as a contributor to National Review, he's clearly on the hook for the legal expenses he's incurred writing there.

Here's the update, which includes an admission by Steyn that he might need some help, "The Robe to Hell":

Two days after Judge Weisberg's ruling in the Mann vs Steyn case, the offers to chip in for a legal defense fund are still pouring in. I'm genuinely touched by the kindness and generosity of readers. As most of you know, I resisted such offers during my Canadian travails and suggested instead that anyone who wanted to show financial support should take out a subscription to Maclean's. But the scale of expenditures down here is so much greater I may have to break my rule and pass the hat. We'll make a decision in the next few days. In the meantime, if you've got a few bucks to toss my way, there's an autographed copy of my book on free speech with your name on it, or some other item from the SteynOnline store. That way we all win: I get enough funds to fight a full-strength defense; you get some great reading matter, or listening matter, or chest-hugging matter.

The other thing I've been tremendously moved by is the number of lawyers offering their services. I'm thinking this one through very carefully after what happened this last year, but I am poring over the various bits of legal advice. One thing that's not going to change, though, is my inclination to speak up when judges play fast and loose. As I said to Mother Jones:

The misplaced reverence for judges in America is perplexing to me. In my cultural tradition, a judge is just a bloke in a wig. He may be a smart bloke in a wig, or he may be an idiot in a wig. But the wig itself is not dispositive.

After many years in America, I have never felt so foreign as reading the pile-up of commentary from supposedly sophisticated persons tutting about how my "assailing" the judge will not be "helpful" to the case. This absurd prostration before the bench is one of the biggest structural defects in this country. Jim writes to Mark's Mailbox as follows:

I'm certainly on your side on this one but would recommend not criticizing the judiciary or previous judges ("incompetence of the previous judge", "an act of jurisprudential hygiene", "procedural bungling", etc.) while the case is pending. The judges all work together and don't like litigants to take potshots at their colleagues and procedures. For a judge to bristle against comments like that is human nature and while it may not overtly cause the judge to rule against you on motions, etc., it is likely to subconsciously influence the judge against you.

Focus on the actions/claims of the plaintiff, not on the judges. You've apparently been through litigation before so you might have a strategy for doing this, but from my vantage point it's a bad idea.

So it's "human nature" for a judge to go into a big queeny huff because one of his supplicants is doing insufficient robe-kissing? So much for judicial temperament. David Appel headlined his post on the case "Who Knew? Judges Don't Appreciate Insults From Defendants" - implying (without evidence) that Judge Weisberg's ruling is some sort of pique at my dismissing his colleague Combs-Greene as an incompetent. As Mr Appel's first commenter responds:

It's a far bigger insult to the judge for you to imply they are not impartial - letting some perceived insult influence the case - than anything Steyn has said.

Exactly. Or as Tyler Null tweets:

If that uppity-peasant theory is true, we're all f**ked.

Continue reading.

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