Comments 7-24-14

LifeNews: Feminist Studies Professor Who Assaulted Pro-Lifer Pleads No Contest to Criminal Charges
"Roundy McFatface has entered a plea of nolo contendere (no contest) to the criminal charges against her, which include grand theft, vandalism, and battery." Via @GabrielMalor. [rdbrewer]


Noah Rothman: ISIS reportedly orders women and girls of Mosul to undergo ‘genital mutilation’
"Following the purge of Christians in the Iraqi city of Mosul and the destruction of a nearly 2,000-year-old Christian house of worship, fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have continued to impose a grotesque and medieval form of Sharia Law on the city’s remaining Muslim residents." Also from HotAir: The West is losing Cold War II. [rdbrewer]


Popular Mechanics: The Looming Threat of a Solar Superstorm
A couple of years old. Related to Ace's post on coronal mass ejections. "Protecting the power grid on Earth is, in principle, relatively straightforward. (Countries such as Finland and Canada have already begun to take action, with promising results.) Most high-voltage transformers are directly connected to the ground to neutralize power surges from lightning strikes and other transient phenomena. They’re vulnerable to space weather because geomagnetic currents flow upward through these ground connections." [rdbrewer]

Rick Perry: Illegals Behind 3,000 homicides & 8,000 sexual assaults in TX Since ’08 [dri]

Eitan Chitayat, Times of Israel: Shalom, motherf****r.
"My country accepts an Egyptian-proposed Gaza cease-fire twice and Hamas keeps firing away. They aim rockets at civilians while we go at great lengths to avoid civilians actually calling them in their areas and dropping warning charges, to give innocents a chance to escape." Via @JammieWF. [rdbrewer]


Jim Geraghty: In Sum, the Morning’s News Is Bad. Bad, Bad, Bad.
See the next headline, f/x. One upshot of all this: "From now on, no Europeans are allowed to brag about how sophisticated they are." [rdbrewer]

Bloomberg: Air Algerie-Operated Plane Disappears en Route to Algiers
"An Air Algerie-operated MD-83 carrying 116 people disappeared en route from Burkina Faso in Africa to Algiers and has probably crashed in Mali...." Via @JimGeraghty. [rdbrewer]


Jamie Weinstein: Alan Dershowitz: Media ‘Racist’ In Coverage Of Israel-Hamas Conflict
"During two days last week, more Syrians were killed than in the entire flare up between Israel and Hamas over the last two weeks. In total, more Arabs have died in the current Syrian civil war than in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict by nearly a factor of two." Also from TheDC: The White House still wants $3.7 billion to blow on whatever it wants to make the immigration problem worse. Let's not do that, okay? [rdbrewer]


So You Want Proof Hamas Uses Civilians As Human Shields? Here Are Ten Examples.
"Since Israel's Operation Protective Edge began over three weeks ago, the mainstream media has been highlighting the civilian casualties in Gaza. In most cases, even if they report the Hamas use of human shields they report them as 'Israeli allegations,' as opposed to facts." [rdbrewer]

Border Patrol Agent Draws Gun on Boy Scout Over a Photograph [dri]

Comments 7-23-14

IRS has 'no excuses' for latest twist in e-mail saga, says IT expert, said 'expert' being, well, me. Also, be sure to read krakatoa's excellent rundown below as to what a 'scratched hard drive' really means. If that post had been up a bit sooner, I would have simply passed the link on to Fox News (and did so after the fact). [Fritzworth]

Video: Guilty dog apologizes to baby for stealing toy
Brings baby more toys. [rdbrewer]

Deep Oceans have been cooling for the last 20 years.
The hidden heat is REALLY well hidden!
Could it be... Reverse Volcanos? [ArthurK]

Jim Geraghty: Our Sudden De Facto Travel Ban on Israel
"We’ve just told Hamas that we’ll stop our flights into Israel whenever they hit near the airport." [rdbrewer]


Video: Last night's Special Report All Star Panel on ISIS persecution of Christians in Iraq
Watch the whole thing. [rdbrewer]

Sean Davis: No, Halbig Did Not Gut Obamacare Because Of A 'Drafting Error'
"[I]f the law’s authors originally intended to constrain subsidies to state plans, what was the rationale for the IRS about-face in 2011? That’s actually an easy one to answer: the administration never imagined that so many states would refuse to establish Obamacare exchanges. The subsidies for state exchange plans were meant to be pot sweeteners—incentives for states to set up their own exchanges." [rdbrewer]


Mitchell: Obama’s Fundraising Trips Are Being Questioned for Good Reason
"'This is the optics of leadership,' she said. 'The golf course is not the best place to be, even though you don’t really see him out there. But the fundraising, those trips really are being questioned for a good reason.'" [rdbrewer]


Ditch Mitch?
"Who was ultimately responsible for the evil Mississippi primary campaign that smeared supporters of Chris McDaniel as racists? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, that’s who." [rdbrewer]

David Ignatius, WaPo: How to break Hamas’s stranglehold on Gaza
"Hamas’s biggest weakness of all is its unpopularity among Palestinians in Gaza now. A poll taken in June, before the latest fighting began, showed that 70 percent of Gazans wanted a continuing cease-fire with Israel; 57 percent wanted a Fatah-Hamas unity government to renounce violence against Israel...." [rdbrewer]


Josh Kraushaar: The Odds of a GOP Wave Are Increasing
"This week, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg released new data showing Obama's disapproval at a whopping 60 percent in 12 Senate battlegrounds, with half strongly disapproving of his performance. Overall, Republicans held a 2-point edge on the battleground generic ballot, 46 percent to 44 percent. Those are the numbers that foreshadow wave elections." [rdbrewer]


Page Six: David Gregory’s time on ‘Meet the Press’ is almost up
I guess being an unprofessional partisan hack didn't work out. Funny quote: "Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have also been said be angling for a Sunday slot, but NBC insiders said there are concerns about putting a partisan host in charge of 'Meet the Press,' as Scarborough is a former Republican congressman." You see, Scarborough is partisan, unlike Gregory. How about Chuck Todd? [rdbrewer]

A.J. Delgado: It’s Time for Conservatives to Stop Defending Police
"Imagine if I were to tell you there is a large group of government employees, with generous salaries and ridiculously cushy retirement pensions covered by the taxpayer, who enjoy incredible job security and are rarely held accountable even for activities that would almost certainly earn the rest of us prison time. When there is proven misconduct, these government employees are merely reassigned and are rarely dismissed." Related: See the next headline. [rdbrewer]

Jonathan Turley: San Diego Police Sued Over Stripper 'Inspections' At Two Clubs
"Some 10 officers swarmed the club and forced the women to stand nearly nude while they allegedly took their pictures and made crude remarks. The officers reportedly ordered some women to lift what little clothing they had on to check for tattoos." Assholes abusing their authority. They should be fired, of course, but that won't happen. [rdbrewer]

Comments 7-22-14

Phillip Seymore Hoffman Leaves Estate to the Mother of His Children, But Nothing Directly to His Children, Fearing They Would Become "Trust Fund Kids"

Blog Claims to Have Details of Plot (Well, the Opening At Least) of Star Wars 7
I guess I should say "spoilers" but 1, it's probably not true and 2, who cares?

Again: UN Inspectors Find More Hamas Rockets at Another Gaza SchoolI'm starting to think these Palestinians just sort of hide weapons in civilian centers as a general tactic or something

Via Hot Air, People Who Are Afraid of Spiders Probably Just Haven't Seen This Giant Saw-Toothed Dragonfly Yet

The Week: Man builds 'biggest fart machine ever,' plans to aim it at France
"Furze plans to aim his fart cannon at France from Dover, England... and he plans to build a giant butt to house the fart machine." Rock on, great man. [rdbrewer]

Times of Israel: For second time, rockets found at UN school in Gaza
"'Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip,' the organization said in a statement issued Tuesday." [rdbrewer]

Jeeze Louise: Astrophysicists Posit Gigantic Mirror Within Spitting Distance of Sun to Slowly Move the Sun Due to the Light-Pressure of Its Reflected Rays; Idea is to Move the Entire Solar System So That We Can Swap our Star (When It Begins Dying) for Another, Younger Star
Oldest story in the world, dump the old one, pick up the new Trophy Star [h/t: Instapundit]