The New York Times has created a Palin map. Grizzlies and non-grizzlies included.

Christine Rosen on a mechanical humility issue:

The decline in humility toward our machines comes at a time when we know almost nothing about how or why they work. Although overwhelmed by its power, Henry Adams nevertheless had a basic understanding of how the dynamo operated. Most of us know very little about how our laptop computers run or how to repair our washing machines. Today we are less likely to feel awe in the presence of our machines than we are to experience what historian Jacques Barzun called “machine-made helplessness.” This, too, is a form of blind faith, like the people who, devotedly following the instructions of their car’s GPS device, drive right off a hill, all the while certain that this must be impossible – how could their perfectly calibrated machine be wrong?

The awe experienced by earlier generations was part of a different worldview, one that demonstrated greater humility about many things, not least of which concerned their own human limits and frailties. Today we believe our machines allow us to know a lot more, and in many ways they do. What we don’t want to admit – but should – is that they also ensure that we directly experience less. Updating your Facebook page is a lot easier than venturing out into the world to confront a dynamo, as Adams did. But it is also, in the end, likely to be a lot less awe-inspiring.

 

Via Flowing Data:

I’m speaking today at a Tea Party event in Friday Harbor.

Daily Kos editor dreams of liquidating opponents.

A Daily Kos contributing editor has suggested that “Steve Milloy and his buddies” commit suicide or be euthanized apparently for the crime of opposing global warming alarmism.

Amid a rant on his Examiner.com blog about skeptics “carpet-bomb[ing] newspaper editorial pages with climate change disinformation…], Steven Alexander, who writes for Daily Kos under the nom-de-plume “Darksyde,” wrote that,… if only Milloy and his buddies could check into one of the [Soylent Corporation’s] lovely medical suites for a short nature movie and a glass of wine…The reference is to the assisted suicide scene in the 1973 movie Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston.

Meanwhile, leftwing icon Oliver Stone continues to believe Stalin and Hitler were misunderstood (Oh, and they were, just not in the way Stone thinks).

This seems to me problematic for all sorts of reasons:

Red-Handed: Will Republicans return the money donated by the Wyly brothers?

Will Republicans return the huge sums they’ve received from the Wyly brothers, now that they’ve been charged with insider trading?

Slate doesn’t quite get what’s going on, it seems. Never mind the sloppiness of using “red-handed” for a couple of guys who have been charged with a crime but by no means convicted; this isn’t really an insider-trading case, but a tax-evasion case. (The insider-trading stuff is kind of tacked on, and it has lawyers scratching their heads and calling the theory under which the charges were made “novel,” which translates: nonsense.) The Wylys are accused of using a combination of offshore partnerships and trusts to evade U.S. taxes. It’s a super-complex case and it is by no means obvious that the Wylys have broken the law. In any case, it’s not as though running afoul of the tax man is a Republican thing; you can still be Obama’s treasury secretary after a tax fracas. You can park your money in a tax-friendly jurisdiction, or you can park your yacht in a tax-friendly jurisdiction. It’s hardly an occasion for a partisan gotcha.

But, if you are going to ask this question

Will Republicans return the huge sums they’ve received from the Wyly brothers, now that they’ve been charged with insider trading?

shouldn’t you also ask whether Democrats and Democrat-affiliated organizations are going to return the money they’ve received from George Soros, who not only has been charged with insider trading, but has been convicted of it? We’re talking about a very large political operation funded by a guy who has been charged with and convicted of insider trading, and who saw that conviction upheld on review. Not accused; convicted. Guilty. So, what about all that Soros money sloshing around on the left: Is the Center for American Progress going to close up shop? Is every Emily’s List candidate going to spurn that endorsement because Soros helps to finance the group? Is the SEIU’s Anna Burger, former director of the Soros-funded Fund for America, going to step aside from the Obama administration’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board? And what do our friends at Media Matters think about this?

This should be a hoot:

Democratic leaders and major party donors plan to hold a lavish 80th birthday gala for Charles Rangel at The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan next month, despite 13 ethics charges pending against the veteran lawmaker.

Lobbyists and other party donors received invitations this week to join Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and New York Gov. David Paterson at one of New York’s finest hotels to celebrate Rangel’s birthday.

Prompted by the press release for my new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, as well as my Corner post, “What’s So Strange About Socialism?” a Democratic activist who writes at FrumForum under the pseudonym “Eugene Victor Debs” took a whack at me for calling Obama a socialist. I answered Debs yesterday, and today he’s is back with a challenge and a promise to respond to me at greater length. I expect our exchange will continue next week.

Christopher Isherwood’s 1960s diaries come out in November, and the volume is full of nuggets (gossipy and otherwise). Here he is on Mick Jagger, in 1969: “very pale, quiet, good-tempered, full of fun, ugly-beautiful, a bit like Beatrix Lehmann; he has the air of a castaway, someone saved from a wreck, but not in the least dismayed by it.” Isherwood tells his diary that Jagger told him that the real reason the Beatles left Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was that the Maharishi had made a pass at one of them. (Isherwood — himself both an accomplished anecdotist and a famous practitioner of Vedanta — comments: “Am still not sure I believe this story.”) The quote from Jagger, explaining the Beatles’ departure from the Maharishi, may pique the interest of students of British sociology, and of those who wish to reignite the ancient Beatles-vs.-Stones debate. Saith Mick (per Isherwood): “They’re simple north-country lads; they’re terribly uptight about all that.”

(Apropos of which, isn’t it marvelous that, 40 years on, everyone still knows about both the Beatles and the Stones? By way of contrast, imagine what would have happened if you had asked a youth of 1970 about, say, Rudy Vallee and Al Jolson.)

Isherwood is an acute observer, and he got to observe a lot: If you spend years of your life in both Weimar Germany and 1960s Southern California, you will have stories to tell.

Lots of response to my Lindsey Graham/birthright citizenship post, most of it disagreeing with me (politely) and agreeing with Graham (as uncomfortable as most readers were about doing so!). This from someone who’s dealt with the problem:

As somebody who has worked in the immigration arena as a USG employee, despite often not agreeing with your solutions, I appreciate and respect your knowledge of many of the challenges, issues, and downright stupidity of our immigration approach.

With respect to your post on birthright citizenship, although I don’t necessarily agree, I won’t quibble with your overall point. That said, I’m not sure you realize how widespread this problem is — perhaps not in sheer numbers relative to overall illegal immigration — and the threat it presents for our country.

As somebody who has adjudicated over 30,000 nonimmigrant visas in Latin America, the Middle East, and West Africa, I can assure you that this is a problem everywhere in the world. There are vast, vast numbers of women traveling to the U.S. solely to obtain citizenship for her child. It serves as a huge magnet and does us great harm (economically, national security, etc.)  In many of these cases, these women have absolutely no connection whatsoever to the U.S. In the worst of cases, these children become true threats to our country. While serving at a post in the Middle East (in a country where American diplomats have been killed in cold blood by terrorists), I came across countless cases of teenagers and young men (and women) who carried a U.S. passport but had never been in the U.S. outside of the 6 weeks they spent on our soil right after being born. One can easily imagine the threat this poses to our country.

But aside from that, respectfully, your recommended solution to the very large problem of birthright citizenship is way too simplistic and simply impractical.

Nor does the problem of “birth tourism” require a change in the Constitution — we just need to permit (and require) our consular officers to reject visa applications from pregnant women, inviting them to re-apply once they’ve given birth in their own countries.

To be blunt, short of bloodtesting every female visa applicant of child-bearing age, how exactly are officers to determine that a woman is pregnant? In very few cases was I able to clearly tell a woman was pregnant. Most times, the woman already has a valid visa before getting pregnant, applies for a visa in the early months of her pregnancy, or is easily able to conceal it (think West Africa where the traditional dress makes this very simple to do). Not once did a woman come in and tell me that she was going to the U.S. specifically to have a child.

The current reality is that many officers are so sick of the constant barrage of women traveling to the U.S. to drop a B1/B2 baby [B1/B2 are the designations for the business traveler and tourist visas. —MK] that they indeed refuse solely on the suspicion that an applicant is traveling to drop a baby, or they follow the regs to the letter of the law and hold their nose before issuing to otherwise qualified applicants.

The only solution to this problem is to modify the Constitution. To put it simply, it’s sheer madness that we continue to grant citizenship on the basis of the place of birth. It makes absolutely no sense in today’s world, and does nothing but create very significant problems for our country.

I applaud anybody who is serious about putting a stop to this.

I agree with the writer that only blood tests could ensure that pregnant women don’t get visas, but I’d like to start with smaller solutions (like asking about pregnancy on the visa application and requiring the visa officer and/or the airport inspector to reject those who are pregnant) and see if they work first, before moving on to amend the Constitution.

And then this from someone with a different kind of relevant experience:

Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are facing a dilemma: Although they publicly bemoan the fact that Republicans won’t help them pass an unpopular amnesty . . . er, comprehensive immigration-reform bill, they don’t want to force vulnerable Democrats to vote on amnesty this close to the November elections — especially not with unemployment at 9.5 percent.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) may have uncovered the answer to their dilemma yesterday: an internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo (reported here on NRO) that outlines steps the Obama administration can take “in the absence of Comprehensive Immigration Reform” — that is, lawfully enacted amnesty — to “reduce the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United States without authorization.”

The four authors of the memo, titled “Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” are political appointees USCIS chief of policy and strategy Denise Vanison (a former immigration attorney and partner at Patton Boggs) and USCIS chief counsel Roxana Bacon (former general counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association), and two career employees of USCIS director Alejandro Mayorkas, another Obama appointee.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress — and only Congress — the authority to decide federal immigration law, but the Obama administration has come up with an extensive list of ways to ensure that a majority of the illegal aliens in the United States are allowed to remain here.

Here are just three examples of the outrageous proposals in the memo:

● USCIS could grant “parole-in-place,” which comes with a work permit and the ability to obtain a green card, to certain classes of aliens who entered the country illegally. Such classes would include those who entered as minors and those who “have lived for many years in the U.S.” A nice reward for those who have successfully violated the law for the longest period of time.

● For those who overstay their visas, the memo recommends granting “deferred action,” which means that deportation is deferred indefinitely and the illegal alien can apply for a work permit. The memo suggests two particular categories of illegal aliens for deferred action: those who might benefit if Congress were to pass the DREAM Act amnesty (of which there are 2.1 million, according to the Migration Policy Institute) and those “who have resided in the U.S. since 1996 (or as of a different date designed to move forward the Registry provision now limited to entries before January 1, 1972).” The “Registry provision” referred to is an actual federal law, not that it matters to the memo’s authors.

● To make sure no illegal alien is left behind, the memo suggests that DHS could simply stop issuing “Notices to Appear” (the document that starts the removal process for illegal aliens) unless the alien has a “significant negative immigration or criminal history.” Apparently, violating immigration law once or twice is acceptable. These folks wouldn’t be able to apply for a work permit, but since the Obama administration isn’t conducting worksite enforcement against illegal aliens much anymore, that shouldn’t matter.

No wonder Reid, Pelosi, and Obama seem content to avoid a legislative battle over immigration; the Department of Homeland Security is hard at work on ways to implement its own amnesty.

Eager to claim credit for charting a new course for Detroit with “targeted investments making new technologies,” the president strangely chose as his backdrop the iconic Jeep SUV brand that first launched the small truck craze in the 1980s. This is the same vehicle that Obama and his green allies condemn as having laid waste to the planet.

With Chrysler only just struggling to its feet after the bottom fell out of the market in 2008, the company has gone back to its roots to launch the gas-guzzling, 4-wheel drive SUV. Chrysler’s truck-heavy lineup has suffered in a recession where customers returned to smaller sedans, but the new Grand Cherokee has been met with rave reviews, and the Jefferson North plant has added 1,100 jobs to keep up with renewed SUV demand.

This seemed lost (or perhaps willfully lost) on a president who is determined to transform what Americans drive. “If you’re willing to remake yourself for changing times, we’ll stand by you,” Obama said in explaining the rescue of Chrysler. But a new Grand Cherokee is as status quo as they come.

Read the rest here.

The Anti-Defamation League, the venerable Jewish civil rights group, has taken a stance of qualified opposition to the building of the “Cordoba Center” near the site of the World Trade Center. From the ADL web site:

We regard freedom of religion as a cornerstone of the American democracy, and that freedom must include the right of all Americans – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths – to build community centers and houses of worship. 

We categorically reject appeals to bigotry on the basis of religion, and condemn those whose opposition to this proposed Islamic Center is a manifestation of such bigotry.

However, there are understandably strong passions and keen sensitivities surrounding the World Trade Center site.  We are ever mindful of the tragedy which befell our nation there, the pain we all still feel – and especially the anguish of the families and friends of those who were killed on September 11, 2001.  

The controversy which has emerged regarding the building of an Islamic Center at this location is counterproductive to the healing process.  Therefore, under these unique circumstances, we believe the City of New York would be better served if an alternative location could be found.

In recommending that a different location be found for the Islamic Center, we are mindful that some legitimate questions have been raised about who is providing the funding to build it, and what connections, if any, its leaders might have with groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values.  These questions deserve a response, and we hope those backing the project will be transparent and forthcoming.  But regardless of how they respond, the issue at stake is a broader one. 

Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam.  The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong.  But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right.  In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.

On August 9, Sarah Palin will drop into the Peach State to stump for Karen Handel, a GOP gubernatorial candidate. The visit will give Handel some eleventh-hour momentum:

According to the campaign of GOP candidate Karen Handel, Palin will team up with Georgia’s former secretary of state at a get out the vote campaign rally on Monday August 9. The next day Handel faces off against former Rep. Nathan Deal in the runoff contest.

Handel was endorsed before the July 20 primary by the former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee. Palin’s backing appeared to quiet some on the right who criticized Handel as not being conservative enough and appeared to help Handel rise in the final polls conducted before the primary.

Handel has also been endorsed by Mitt Romney and Gov. Jan Brewer (R., Ariz.).

Andrew Breitbart is a wonderful man and an American patriot, and both of those qualities are on display in this Newsweek interview. “If I could do it all over again,” he says, “I should have waited for the full video to get to me.”

While President Obama has tried to use his Detroit visit to take credit for saving the U.S. auto industry (as well as showing it how to create a whole new market in green cars of the future — the man is nothing if not modest), the White House has downplayed the idea that this is a “Mission Accomplished” moment. No banners, no hats, no pins.

So let Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan say it for him. “He has a right to take a victory lap,” the Democrat told reporters as he accompanied the president today.

From Thursday night’s Fox-News All-Stars.

On Charlie Rangel’s ethics trial versus a plea deal:

For Democrats it’s lose-lose. I think it’s worse if you get a trial simply because it becomes a spectacle. It’s on television every day. It reminds people. If you have a deal, it’s a one-day story, a two-day story. It is an issue that’ll be raised [by congressional candidates] over and over again, but it‘s not going to be a national story every day.

We haven’t had a trial since James Traficant … And I hate to see Rangel in that category. I think what’s really interesting here is that through his lawyers he seemed to be ready to concede or compromise on what you might call the venial sins, the ones that come when you become a chairman — powerful, you get used to the kingly accoutrements of the office and [he might admit that] he stepped over the line on perks.

But he seems really resistant to admitting to the misuse of office. There’s this one charge that in order to solicit a million dollars for the Rangel Center at the City University in New York, he, at least in the charge, was considering giving a tax break to the individual and the company.

Now that’s corruption. And that’s what I think he’s holding out on because I don’t think he ever wants to admit that. That would be a stain on a heroic life and career, and I think he will hold out on that and fight.

On President Obama’s appearance on “The View” in order to reach out to female voters:

The reason I think this will not move any needle is because when you’re a challenger, you are a newcomer, charm works, and you can get elected on charm. Once you have been in office and you want to be reelected, that is a referendum on governance, not on charm.

Everyone knows he is charming. But the issue is, can he run a government? And on that, there is a lot of skepticism.

On the revelation that the woman who stood next to Obama during his Rose Garden statement calling for extending unemployment benefits is unemployed after pleading guilty to felony prescription drug fraud, and had another charge of felony grand larceny in 2007:

When you have ten million unemployed and you can’t find three that are clean, you have a competence issue.

Can this gang shoot straight? That event happened, the press conference happened on the day of the Sherrod firing.

And this is a group that wants to run national health care, run cap-and-trade, and is dispensing $1 trillion of stimulus money as we speak.

This newest issue of National Review is a good’un:

You’ll want to get to wherever finer magazines are sold and check out Bob Costa on the reinvention of John McCain, Julian Sanchez on defense spending, Henry Payne on electric car subsidies, Ross Douthat on Inception, and more!

Oh, and if you get a chance, check out my piece on Chris Christie and the battle for New Jersey. It’s my first cover and I can’t pretend that I’m not geeking out about it.

The White House press secretary slams the talk-radio host:

At Powerline, John Hinderaker has the infuriating story that Spain’s National Court has issued international arrest warrants against three American soldiers involved in a 2003 attack on Baghdad’s Hotel Palestine, where a cameraman for a Spanish TV station and a Reuters reporter were accidentally killed. The case has nothing to do with Spain; it is, as John says, another instance of that country’s presumptuous assumption of “authority to pursue politically motivated persecutions of anyone, anywhere in the world.”

Last year, I wrote this column on Spain’s “universal jurisdiction” power play.

This video gives a fuller picture of what was going on with Anthony Weiner’s screaming last night.

As you might have noticed, we launched the re-design. We know the logo up in the left-hand corner seems dark, brooding and Hopperesque, which is why we’re asking for your help in coming up with alternative designs. Click here and send us your ideas. Here are a few suggestions we’re already considering from an enterprising reader.

The street Corner:

The hot Corner (I’m going to assume that’s Yankee Stadium):

The NASCAR Corner:

And the obligatory Hulk Goldberg:

The Taliban has issued a warning to Afghans whose names might appear on the leaked Afghanistan war logs as informers for the Nato-led coalition.

 

In an interview with Channel 4 News, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said they were studying and investigating the report, adding “If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them.”

The warning came as the US military’s top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen said that Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, may already have blood on his hands following the leak of 92,000 classified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan by his website.

President Obama is touting the success of his administration’s bailout of the Detroit automakers. But this victory lap is like the woman who boasted to her friend that she made her husband a millionaire. When the friend asked what her husband had been before, she answered, “a billionaire.”

General Motors and Chrysler are much better off because Bush gave them $24 billion and Obama gave them another $60 billion. Any company would be. Pouring federal dollars into businesses does improve their bottom lines, but that doesn’t mean it helps the overall economy. The real question is: What would have happened to that money if the government had not spent it in Detroit?

The government shouldn’t plan on getting its money back. President Obama concedes that the $24 billion Bush spent — more than NASA’s annual budget — is gone for good. And Obama’s claims to the contrary, the money he spent isn’t coming back, either.

General Motors would have to command a market value of more than $70 billion for the taxpayers’ stake in the company to be worth what Obama paid for it. Since General Motors’ highest-ever market valuation was $52 billion in 2000, at the peak of the dot-com boom and the SUV craze, that seems improbable — especially since Obama’s new miles-per-gallon regulations won’t let them build as many of those highly profitable SUVs. At the end of the day, the government will still have sunk tens of billions of dollars into GM and Chrysler with no hope of recovering it.

From CBS News via CQ:

Michael Reagan, eldest son of former president Ronald Reagan, is selling @reagan.com e-mail addresses, CBS News reports, “with an appeal to conservatives to stop giving their money to companies he casts as tied to liberalism.”

The pitch: “Well, every time you use your email from companies like Google, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, Apple and others, you are helping the liberals. These companies are, and will continue, to be huge supporters financially and with technology of those that are hurting our country.”

The House ethics panel charged with conducting the inquiry and trial against Rep. Charlie Rangel (D., N.Y.) has recommended Rangel be “reprimanded” for 13 alleged ethics violations:

Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), chairman of the ethics investigative subcommittee that announced the charges, told reporters Friday that his panel concluded Rangel should be reprimanded. 

“The recommendation that we had was that he be reprimanded,” Green said.

Such a punishment might be seen as a slap on the wrist to some. The subpanel could have recommended that Rangel be censured, or that he be expelled from the House.

There was no recommendation for punishment listed in the lengthy report issued by Green’s panel on Thursday.

Green also suggested Rangel was not as close to reaching a settlement as had been suggested.

“There were lots of rumors, but there were no offers [among members] over the last two weeks,” he said.

A deal would have avoided the public trial, likely to begin in mid-September, that Rangel now faces.

More at The Hill.

This is me testing the new redesign software doohickeys. It feels weird in here. 

Denis, don’t tell me those “youths” are at it again — sacrebleu!

Here’s my column today on Judge Bolton’s comic relief.