AoSHQ Podcast

This week's guest: John Sexton

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Interesting testimony in the Litvinenko polonium murder investigation.
Odd that rookie assassins would get polonium poison. ht @IlvesToomas [ArthurK]

Finally, someone with some nuggets! Jordan tells ISIS, "Kill our pilot and we'll execute all your prisoners".

Kung Fu: The Way of the Tiger, The Sign of the Dragon
Series pilot. [rdbrewer]

Weekend art: Van Gogh, "Public Garden with Couple and Blue Fir Tree" (1888)

The College Fix: Must read for conservative students: Jonah Goldberg equips you for battle [rdbrewer]

Albatross cam [rdbrewer]

Dog rescued from LA river
Video. [rdbrewer]

Did you guys know this about Katy Perry?
[rdbrewer]

@MKHammer: Football 101: The Downton Abbey Guide to the Super Bowl [rdbrewer]

CNN: Mary Cheney: Why is drag 'socially acceptable' and blackface isn't?
Via Drudge. "If a man can dress up as a woman to entertain an audience, then why can't a white person get on stage in blackface, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney wondered aloud Thursday in a private Facebook post obtained by CNN." Related: Mediaite. [rdbrewer]

Crazy Bald Guy: I'm a poet and I didn't even know it
Poetry made from anti-Obama tweets. [rdbrewer]

Mediaite: Michael Moore: Clint Eastwood Once Threatened to Kill Me
Could Eastwood's stock soar any higher? [rdbrewer]

Mediaite: Fox’s Greg Gutfeld Feuds with Marilyn Manson over Mocking Muslims
Greg hurt Manson's feelings, you guys. "To Gutfeld, that particular comment exemplified Manson’s 'risk-free rebellion,' seeing as the musician became famous by going after Christianity with albums like Antichrist Superstar. 'Spoken like a true rebel, the kind who trashes hotel rooms that some child’s mother must clean up for minimum wage,' Gutfeld said Monday on The Five. 'How daring.'" [rdbrewer]

Andrew Sullivan: Defying civil rights advances since 2000
Excitable Andi will be missed however....who else is this tone-deaf? [CBD]

Top Headline Comments 1/30/15

Just a Beautiful Photo Series, Really

Evidence for Cosmic Inflation Theory Bites the (Space) Dust
"The most exciting astronomical discovery of 2014 has vanished. Two groups of scientists announced today (Jan. 30) that a tantalizing signal... was actually caused by something much more mundane: interstellar dust." [rdbrewer]

NBC: Could Particle X Explain Dark Matter? Scientists Have a Plan
They think it might be 50 times lighter than an electron, and that it interacts with normal matter, not light. "[T]he researchers say particle X 'would have been missed by all experiments so far,' but might be detectable in space." More detail from The Daily Galaxy. [rdbrewer]

James Glanz, NY Times: Deflation Experiments Show Patriots May Have a Point After All
"When a gauge indicates that the ball contains 12.5 p.s.i. — the minimum allowed by the N.F.L. — the actual pressure is more than twice that amount because the surrounding pressure of the atmosphere must be considered. This roughly doubles how much a dip in temperature can lower the pressure." Whups. Added: @JohnPSquibob reminds me the Colts' balls didn't have the same decrease. Added 2: @CrankyTRex says the Colts' balls may have started out at a higher psi. [rdbrewer]


Adam Kredo: Open Jihad Declared in Egypt Following State Dept. Meeting with Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders
"The meeting was described by a member of the delegation, Maha Azzam as 'fruitful,' according to one person who attended a public event in Washington earlier this week hosted by the group." A "fruitful" meeting with State leads to a call for jihad? [rdbrewer]


Time Magazine’s Jeffrey Kluger writes what might possibly be the stupidest article about climate ever – climate change causes volcanoes [rdbrewer]


Neatorama: Pit Bull - Dachshund Mix Is A Thing Of Bizarre Beauty
"Dragon" would be a good name. Via @Alyssa_Milano. [rdbrewer]


Biden: 'The Past Six Years Have Been Really, Really Hard For This Country'
And now that we're addressing this out in the open, Democrats, let's work together to keep it all from going to hell over the next two years. Added: More from CBS DC. [rdbrewer]

Drudge

The Kelly File: Insight into the rising tensions between White House, Israel
Brit Hume on the ongoing fury at the White House over Netanyahu's visit: The president needed to "put on his big boy pants" and welcome Netanyahu to Washington. Indeed, rolling with it would have been the better course of action. Problem is, the mean girls are running the show. [rdbrewer]


Charles Krauthammer: The Final Solution: a Nuclear Iran
"Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, and in the Middle East a new Holocaust looms." President Teenager is on it. [rdbrewer]


Charles Krauthammer: Hillary's Message Is "Hillaryness"
Video. [rdbrewer]


Kevin Costner: Anytime Someone Wants To Shut A Conversation Down, You Just Invoke Race
Video. [rdbrewer]

Bill Whittle, Truth Revolt: Racial Racket Ball
Video. More at BillWhittle.com. [rdbrewer]


Byron York: Public opinion left out of picture in Obama immigration drive
"Put another way, 86 percent of Americans would like immigration into this country to remain at today's level or to decrease, versus seven percent who want to see it increase." [rdbrewer]


Editorial: The Times’ low Blow
"At The New York Times, it seems, some key facts are just not fit to print when they don’t fit the liberal narrative." But, the Narrative. [rdbrewer]

Megan McArdle, Bloomberg: When Bread Bags Weren't Funny
"There's a reason old-fashioned kitchens didn't have cabinets: They didn't need them. There wasn't anything to put there." [rdbrewer]

Michelle Goldberg, The Nation: Jonathan Chait and the New PC
Eh, worth a look. "Unlike some of Chait's critics, I think there is such a thing as renascent political correctness." No, it never went away. It's just that authoritarian progs are now bothering liberals. [rdbrewer]


Peggy Noonan: America’s Strategy Deficit
"No one thinks this administration is the A Team when it comes to foreign affairs, but this is unprecedented push-back from top military and intelligence players. They are fed up, they’re less afraid, they’re retired, and they’re speaking out." [rdbrewer]


Buzz builds around Walker
"Even some of Walker’s biggest proponents were surprised by how well he did in Iowa last weekend." [rdbrewer]

Top Headline Comments 1/29/15

Something Silly With a Tank [gabe]

Communist Party USA Chairman Vows Cooperation With Democratic Party
They're not even trying to hide it anymore. H/t @Derekahunter, WBAL radio
[Weirddave]

Andrew Klavan, Truth Revolt: Attack of the But-Heads!
Video. Leftists and Islamists have something in common: big buts. [rdbrewer]

CNet: Bill Gates is worried about artificial intelligence too
Via Drudge. "Microsoft's co-founder joins a list of science and industry notables, including famed physicist Stephen Hawking and Internet innovator Elon Musk, in calling out the potential threat from machines that can think for themselves." Our intelligence has a million years of evolution behind it, plenty of time to work out a lot of issues. AI will start at the finish line, without the inhibitions on behavior we have. [rdbrewer]


Charles C.W. Cooke: Why Mike Huckabee’s Cornpone Politics Drives Me Crazy — And Will Never Work
Agreed, and I'm from the "grits and gravy" portion of the country, as he describes it. Raised in the city. I've had grits, like, maybe twice. I haven't had sex with a cow in over a year. So I find this appeal to stereotype more than a little annoying. Wait. I have to go holler "yeehaw" out the window... [rdbrewer]

GlobalPost: Here’s what moviegoers in Baghdad think of ‘American Sniper’
Spoiler alert: They don't sound like the prog speech police types over here. "'He was a hero and he went through difficult training,' Jalal explained, saying Chris Kyle was just serving his country, a universal duty for all men. 'Besides,' he shrugged, 'it’s just a movie, and I like war movies. If they are true or not, whatever!'" Via @DrewMTips. [rdbrewer]


Patrick Howley: ‘DO NOT DISCLOSE’: Obama Admin Tells Banks To Shut Up About Its Targeting of Consumers, Gun Dealers
"The Obama administration’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is threatening banks to be silent about the administration’s new programs supervising and investigating private bank account holders." [rdbrewer]

Stat mavens look at the "Patriots are cheating cheaters" article and aren't impressed.
Statistics are tricky! ht @ElBuehn [ArthurK]

Top Headline Comments 1/28/15

Draw and Strike: Attention Peasants: The Show Trials Have Been Cancelled Until further Notice!
"In his book, 'Vision of the Anointed: Social Policy As A Basis For Self- Congratulation', Professor Thomas Sowell discusses four stages of failure that necessarily follow when social 'experts' or 'activists' attempt to bring about changes in a group or culture...." [rdbrewer]


Watch Obama Refer to Himself 118 Times in Three [sic] Minutes [rdbrewer]

John Sexton, Breitbart: The Primitive Roots of Political Correctness
"Altruistic punishment, simply put, is the expression of negative emotions toward those who fail to cooperate with the group. It is a pressure tactic designed to whip people into line with the tribe and its goals." [rdbrewer]


Sean Davis: Language Policing Doesn’t Pervert Liberalism, It Is Liberalism
"Modern liberalism depends on the language police, and Jonathan Chait himself is Exhibit A." [rdbrewer]

Leo, the Paralyzed Puppy