Is Islam a Religion of Peace? Is It Compatible with Western Liberalism?

I've had far-left students in my classes, when taking about Islam, and its inherent violence, say, "What about Christianity"? And I always say back, "What about it? Where are the Christian holy warriors slaughtering innocent apostates around the world on a daily basis?" And then these students have nothing to say. I don't go on after that, since I'm their teacher and I want to respect differences of opinion, but it's very difficult in our culture to teach politically charged topics, because leftists students have been poisoned by radical left-wing intolerance and political correctness. I've even had groups of students revolt against my teaching, groups of leftist students who protested against my "conservative" syllabus. I make this an example of what's wrong with our culture today, and I point out to the students their own hypocrisy and closed-mindedness. Needless to say, I'm not popular with groups like that, but I get more praise from the other students when this happens than from just about anything else.

It's amazing.

In any case, here's Ayaan Hirsi Ali. And buy her book, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.

Lisa Damour, Untangled

In bestselling books, at Amazon, Lisa Damour, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood.

BONUS: Nancy Jo Sales, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, and Peggy Orenstein, Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape.

Porsche's 2017 911 Turbo S (VIDEO)

Ever since high school, my dream of dream cars was a Porsche 911. Not necessarily a turbo, though, although the new 911 Turbo S is out of this world. (And obviously way out my price range, with a starting price of just over $200,000.)

I still think, when I'm a little older, that I'll find a way to pick up a pre-owned 911 one of these days. I'll save up for a while, if I need to. Gotta check that off my bucket list.

At LAT, "Auto Review: With the 2017 911 Turbo S, Porsche has made the perfect car a little more perfect":

Did the best just get better?

Porsche’s 2017 911 Turbo S is a faintly measurable fraction superior to the 2016 model. It’s so barely better that only a really first-rate driver would even notice.

I didn’t notice. To me, the 2017 version of this delicious sports car is virtually identical to its predecessor. Because that needed no improvement to impress me, I might not have been impressed by the upgrades.

They’re real, even if I can’t feel them. The 2017 911 Turbo S is equipped with bigger turbochargers, with larger impellers, plus modified cylinder heads and a throttle boost device designed to eliminate turbo lag.

Together, they help produce 20 more horsepower in the 2017 than was available in the identical 2016 version (580, up from 560), a 7-mphr increase in top track speed (205 mph, up from 198) and a 0.1 faster pace from zero to 60, (2.8 seconds, down from 2.9 — though the convertible version still takes that 2.9 seconds).

That makes this the quickest and fastest 911 ever built, and the quickest and fastest mass-production Porsche — after the limited-production 918 Spyder, which posted a 2.5-second sprint to 60 and a top track speed of 214 mph.

Somehow, along with the improved performance, the 2017 also offers improved fuel economy — about 2 miles per gallon better EPA mileage numbers — for a combined 21 mpg.

Like many of its Porsche siblings, the new 911 Turbo S is a rear-engine, all-wheel-drive roadster, designed as much for daily driving as for track-level performance...

More.

And be sure to watch that nifty video above.

The Press Buries Hillary Clinton’s Sins

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ:

If average voters turned on the TV for five minutes this week, chances are they know that Donald Trump made lewd remarks a decade ago and now stands accused of groping women.

But even if average voters had the TV on 24/7, they still probably haven’t heard the news about Hillary Clinton: That the nation now has proof of pretty much everything she has been accused of.

It comes from hacked emails dumped by WikiLeaks, documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, and accounts from FBI insiders. The media has almost uniformly ignored the flurry of bombshells, preferring to devote its front pages to the Trump story. So let’s review what amounts to a devastating case against a Clinton presidency.

Start with a June 2015 email to Clinton staffers from Erika Rottenberg, the former general counsel of LinkedIn. Ms. Rottenberg wrote that none of the attorneys in her circle of friends “can understand how it was viewed as ok/secure/appropriate to use a private server for secure documents AND why further Hillary took it upon herself to review them and delete documents.” She added: “It smacks of acting above the law and it smacks of the type of thing I’ve either gotten discovery sanctions for, fired people for, etc.”

A few months later, in a September 2015 email, a Clinton confidante fretted that Mrs. Clinton was too bullheaded to acknowledge she’d done wrong. “Everyone wants her to apologize,” wrote Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress. “And she should. Apologies are like her Achilles’ heel.”

Clinton staffers debated how to evade a congressional subpoena of Mrs. Clinton’s emails—three weeks before a technician deleted them. The campaign later employed a focus group to see if it could fool Americans into thinking the email scandal was part of the Benghazi investigation (they are separate) and lay it all off as a Republican plot.

A senior FBI official involved with the Clinton investigation told Fox News this week that the “vast majority” of career agents and prosecutors working the case “felt she should be prosecuted” and that giving her a pass was “a top-down decision.”

The Obama administration—the federal government, supported by tax dollars—was working as an extension of the Clinton campaign. The State Department coordinated with her staff in responding to the email scandal, and the Justice Department kept her team informed about developments in the court case.

Worse, Mrs. Clinton’s State Department, as documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show, took special care of donors to the Clinton Foundation. In a series of 2010 emails, a senior aide to Mrs. Clinton asked a foundation official to let her know which groups offering assistance with the Haitian earthquake relief were “FOB” (Friends of Bill) or “WJC VIPs” (William Jefferson Clinton VIPs). Those who made the cut appear to have been teed up for contracts. Those who weren’t? Routed to a standard government website.

The leaks show that the foundation was indeed the nexus of influence and money. The head of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Ira Magaziner, suggested in a 2011 email that Bill Clinton call Sheikh Mohammed of Saudi Arabia to thank him for offering the use of a plane. In response, a top Clinton Foundation official wrote: “Unless Sheikh Mo has sent us a $6 million check, this sounds crazy to do.”

The entire progressive apparatus—the Clinton campaign and boosters at the Center for American Progress—appears to view voters as stupid and tiresome, segregated into groups that must either be cajoled into support or demeaned into silence. We read that Republicans are attracted to Catholicism’s “severely backwards gender relations” and only join the faith to “sound sophisticated”; that Democratic leaders such as Bill Richardson are “needy Latinos”; that Bernie Sanders supporters are “self-righteous”; that the only people who watch Miss America “are from the confederacy”; and that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is “a terrorist.”

The leaks also show that the press is in Mrs. Clinton’s pocket. Donna Brazile, a former Clinton staffer and a TV pundit, sent the exact wording of a coming CNN town hall question to the campaign in advance of the event. Other media allowed the Clinton camp to veto which quotes they used from interviews, worked to maximize her press events and offered campaign advice.

Mrs. Clinton has been exposed to have no core, to be someone who constantly changes her position to maximize political gain...

And unless something changes in the next couple of weeks, Americans are about to elect this woman president.

But keep reading, in any case.

Deal of the Day: Save on STERILITE Ultra-Seal Food Storage Set, 36 Piece

At Amazon, STERILITE 03078601 Ultra-Seal Food Storage Set, 36 Piece.

Also, FIFA 17 - PlayStation 4.

And, Save on Seiko Metal Bracelet Watches.

BONUS: ICYMI, Volker Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939.

Generation Adderall

This is an excellent essay, from Casey Schwartz, at NYT:

Generation Adderall. https://t.co/gYvyrZNBaZ

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 14, 2016

First Lady Michelle Obama Attacks Donald Trump for 'Sexual Predator' Comments (VIDEO)

She's going low after saying Democrats go high.

It's the Democrat-left that's dragged this entire election through the mud of personal character assassination. They always do. It's the only way they can win elections.

Julianna Goldman reports for CBS This Morning:

'Sharia-Compliant Soldiers for Allah Who Want Me Dead...'

Cristina Laila is hard to beat, heh.

On Twitter:

This is all I see now👉🏻EVERYWHERE. I. GO. I'm sick of seeing Sharia compliant soldiers for Allah who want me dead‼️ #BanIslam pic.twitter.com/rJD8ZjQKPm

— Cristina Laila (@cristinalaila1) October 13, 2016

And previously, "Cristina Laila Breaks the Internet!"

Total Meltdown

That's Time Magazine's title.

To me it's the left's meltdown, knowing that they were on the verge of losing the presidency, they went all Dr. Strangelove.

FWIW, "Inside Donald Trump’s Total Meltdown":

Donald Trump's meltdown returns to the cover of TIME https://t.co/Pos9cI6gJQ pic.twitter.com/sOsNMdEiRf

— TIME (@TIME) October 13, 2016

As the 2016 campaign moved into its final weeks, Trump had put the whole country on the rack alongside the Christian conservatives, stretching the sinews of American politics to the breaking point. While some voters were tugged toward the wincing sophistry of the conference call, a larger number pulled disgustedly into the ranks of #nevertrump. The candidate himself was consumed by petty grudges. The furor over the leaked recording seemed to liberate him. Free of the “shackles”–his own tweeted word–Trump reduced his campaign to a primal grunt.

It sounded, at times, like the last gasp of the angry white man. Trump threatened to throw his opponent in jail, bragged of avoiding income taxes and peddled an empty conspiracy theory about undocumented immigrants’ being given voter-registration cards. He insisted he was right to stoke the racial tensions of New York City during the Central Park jogger drama in the 1990s, refusing to accept the DNA proof that he had the case wrong. He promoted a fiction that Muslim friends of the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorists knew their plans but failed to alert authorities, and he injected a crude Russian propaganda effort into one of his rallies without a care about its inaccuracy. Another tape (it wasn’t easy keeping track) caught him agreeing as a radio shock jock labeled his daughter Ivanka “a piece of ass.” Having congratulated himself for keeping the first presidential debate slightly above the muck, in Round 2 he plunged into the wallow, deflecting attention from his own vulgarity by saddling Clinton with the alleged sexual sins of her husband and trying to seat Bill Clinton’s accusers in the front row.

Trump once said on the campaign trail that he would approve of torture as President, “even if it doesn’t work.” With four weeks left to Election Day, he seemed to be testing the proposition on the public. Unshackled, he flirted with unhinged and erased the emollient line between a campaign aimed at the base and one intended to debase.

While his followers reveled, his more reluctant allies squirmed. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Washington’s highest-ranking Republican, came within a whisker of withdrawing his endorsement of the party’s nominee, urged on by his wife, who marched for women’s rights while a student at Wellesley. Trump’s running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, considered quitting the ticket. Then, attempting a straddle, Pence released a stinging rebuke of Trump’s Access excesses before resuming his role as chief cheerleader. “I don’t find myself thinking a whole lot about party right now,” he said on Oct. 11.

But others could no longer stay silent. “Enough!” insisted former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, calling on Trump to withdraw. “Offensive and despicable,” declared Utah Governor Gary Herbert. “I cannot and will not vote for Donald Trump,” said Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama.

The Trump campaign, party insiders admit, could do irreparable damage to a generation of prospects by rendering them enablers. Rivals for the nomination, like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, had cozied up to him until they realized it was too late. Elected officials had hesitated to oppose him lest they rouse his army of pitchfork populists. Many of the leaders of the religious right repeatedly blessed a candidate who bats 0 for 3 on the biblical injunction to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. Barring a last-minute surprise, Trump is on track to lose his race. The question now is whether he’ll destroy the party’s congressional majorities as well.

“It’s us against the world,” declared a digital ad from the Trump campaign on the morning after the debate. But it wasn’t clear whether his main foe in the final month would be Clinton or Republican officials. After his incendiary debate performance, he turned on Ryan and company with a gas can and lighter in hand. “Disloyal R’s are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary,” Trump tweeted of the fleeing Republicans. “They come at you from all sides. They don’t know how to win–I will teach them!” Almost immediately, his fans took up the chorus: Trump loyalists circulated a rumor that Establishment Republicans were behind the leak to the Washington Post of the disastrous tape. When protesters gathered outside the party’s white brick headquarters on Capitol Hill, the organizer turned out to be Trump’s Virginia campaign chairman. One sign waved at the RNC offices read, Better to grab a p-ssy than to be one...

Keep reading.

Volker Ullrich's New Biography of Adolf Hitler

At Amazon, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939.

I doubt we need a new Hitler biography at this point, but then, there's certainly a market for them.

Also, Michiko Kakutani book review.

The Democrat Echo Chamber

I've long attacked Glenn Greenwald as a fanatical Israel-hating leftist, but as you know, he's intriguing, and I've often admired his against-the-grain take on politics.

I know, I know. He's a traitor as well, but still. A broken clock's right twice a day.

In any case, at the Intercept, "In the Democratic Echo Chamber, Inconvenient Truths Are Recast as Putin Plots":

DONALD TRUMP, FOR reasons I’ve repeatedly pointed out, is an extremist, despicable, and dangerous candidate, and his almost-certain humiliating defeat is less than a month away. So I realize there is little appetite in certain circles for critiques of any of the tawdry and sometimes fraudulent journalistic claims and tactics being deployed to further that goal. In the face of an abusive, misogynistic, bigoted, scary, lawless authoritarian, what’s a little journalistic fraud or constant fearmongering about subversive Kremlin agents between friends if it helps to stop him?

But come January, Democrats will continue to be the dominant political faction in the U.S. — more so than ever — and the tactics they are now embracing will endure past the election, making them worthy of scrutiny. Those tactics now most prominently include dismissing away any facts or documents that reflect negatively on their leaders as fake, and strongly insinuating that anyone who questions or opposes those leaders is a stooge or agent of the Kremlin, tasked with a subversive and dangerously un-American mission on behalf of hostile actors in Moscow...

Keep reading.

U.S. Forces in Mosul Prepare for Decisive Battle Against Islamic State (VIDEO)

Holly Williams reports, for CBS This Morning:

America's Most Consistent Outlier: USC Dornsife/L.A. Times Presidential Election 'Daybreak' Tracking Poll

I've blogged this poll quite a bit, although I'm fully aware it's a funky outlier.

I kinda giggle when I see right-wing blogs pumping up the poll, since it's so far out somtimes it's ridiculous.

In any case, see this interesting analysis, at NYT, "How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages."

Devin Brugman Bikini Beachside

At London's Daily Mail, "Booty-ful display! Devin Brugman flaunts her pert posterior in revealing G-string bikini beachside."

It's always bikini season on Maui 🌴 @mondayswimwear pic.twitter.com/d7xrwKDz0n

— Devin Brugman (@devinbrugman) October 11, 2016

Deal of the Day: Save 20% or More on Select Yost Vises

At Amazon, Yost Vises 445 4.5" Utility Combination Pipe and Bench Vise.

More, Yost Bench Vises.

BONUS: From Michelle Malkin, Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies.

Donald Trump Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway Berates ‘Wishy-Washy ’ Republican Leaders (VIDEO)

At ABC News, via Memeorandum.

Chicago Cubs Mount Spectacular Comeback to Defeat the San Francisco Giants in NLDS

Utterly amazing.

And by that I mean the Giants' collapse. They were up three runs and blew it. I almost don't believe it. You've gotta have a world class closer, but here you see Bochy just trolling through the entire bullpen?

I don't know what just happened. I think maybe I jinxed 'em, heh.

I feel sad for the Giants fans, but I would have really felt sad if the Cubs got knocked out of the playoffs. This could be their year. They haven't had a year since what, 1908? Gotta give it up for them. That was quite a comeback.

At the Chicago Tribune, "Cubs mount 9th-inning comeback to beat Giants in Game 4, win NLDS."

.@Cubs fans be LIKE ... pic.twitter.com/YsB1p1RmNl

— MLB (@MLB) October 12, 2016

And at the San Francisco Chronicle, "Giants season ends with huge ninth-inning bullpen collapse."

You can say that again.

Obama Justice Department Helped Hillary Clinton Avoid Political Fallout from Private Emails

This kind of coordination between the regime in power and the party's imminent presidential nominee is what you'd expect in a one-party dictatorship. And here we are, the entire political system, up in arms about politically incorrect lewd comments from 11 years ago.

The American democracy's barely functioning. Indeed, if it wasn't for an anti-American organization, WikiLeaks, we'd have likely never known about the true scale of depraved corruption among Hillary Clinton, the Obama regime, the Democrats, and the insidious left-wing party press.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Emails Show Hillary Clinton Campaign’s Response to Fallout":

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton’s political team sought to contain any potential fallout over her use of a private email server by communicating with government agencies, enlisting help of congressional allies and managing public statements, newly released emails show.

Hacked emails belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta were posted by the website WikiLeaks this week, showing her staff candidly debating the tone and substance of responses to media after the 2015 disclosure of her use of a private email server while leading the State Department during President Barack Obama’s first term.

In several electronic exchanges, Mrs. Clinton’s staff appeared to be in communication with government officials about the email issue. One campaign official is shown telling colleagues about a coming procedural step, which was part of the public record, that he suggests he learned from Justice Department officials.

In another case, an attorney for Mrs. Clinton appeared to know the contents of a State Department document release concerning speeches by former President Bill Clinton before it was made public.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign hasn’t confirmed or denied the authenticity of the email trove posted by WikiLeaks, but a campaign spokesman said the release of apparently stolen internal communications showcases Russian attempts to interfere in the U.S. election on behalf of Mrs. Clinton’s Republican rival, Donald Trump. U.S. intelligence agencies have publicly accused Russia of directing hacks and leaks aimed at top Democratic Party officials, but they haven’t reached a conclusion in the specific breach of Mr. Podesta’s emails.

“The timing shows you that even Putin knows Trump had a bad weekend and a bad debate. The only remaining question is why Donald Trump continues to make apologies for the Russians,” said campaign spokesman Glen Caplin. The campaign declined to comment further.

Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon, who worked at Justice before joining the campaign in 2015, is shown in the emails to be giving a heads up about a preliminary hearing in a lawsuit brought by a Vice News reporter against the State Department. Justice Department attorneys were representing their colleagues at State in the matter. The information provided to Mr. Fallon was in the court’s docket.

“DOJ folks inform me there is a status hearing in this case this morning, so we could have a window into the judge’s thinking about this proposed production schedule as quickly as today,” Mr. Fallon wrote to his colleagues on the campaign.

The Clinton attorney, Heather Samuelson, is shown providing a detailed accounting of Bill Clinton speeches discussed in documents that were to be released by State. She also reported how much the former president, who commanded six-figure sums for his speaking engagements, was paid.

“There is one request where speaking fee would have been paid by Turkish govt—WJC’s office declined this,” Ms. Samuelson wrote, referring to Mr. Clinton. “And one speaking engagement with fee from Canadian government, which he did do.”

Ms. Samuelson didn’t immediately return a request for comment...

Well, of course Ms. Samuelson's unavailable for comment! This is an authoritarian regime we're talking about. They're completely unaccountable.

But keep reading.

Things are coming to a head in this country. A Trump win or not, things are gonna blow. Mark my words. Things are going to erupt around here. People will only take the abuse for so long. We're beyond the tipping point now. We're going to explode.

Will 'Fed-Up' Millennials Vote for Third Party Candidates?

I don't vote third party. Insignificant protest votes are a waste.

Frankly, I'll bet "fed-up" Millennials, if they don't like the choices, will simply decide to sit this one out. It's not like their cohort's voter turnout rate is overpowering, or anything.

In any case, from the front-page at today's USA Today:

Here's where fed-up Millennials are thinking about putting their votes. https://t.co/jefc6Zwb7W

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) October 11, 2016

Nice Photos at Theo's

Theo doesn't post these so much any more.

See, "Pic Dump..."

BONUS: "Another Great View..."