Paul M. Jones

Kissinger, who was in a wheelchair, was told by a TSA agent that he needed to be searched.

“He stood with his suit jacket off, and he was wearing suspenders,” freelance reporter Matthew Cole told the Post. “They gave him the full pat-down. None of the agents seemed to know who he was.” Cole added that Kissinger was given “the full Monty” search.

Kissinger negotiated the Paris Peace Accords which helped bring an end to the Vietnam War.

New dpeths. Via TSA Agents Conduct ‘Full Monty’ Pat-Down On Henry Kissinger « CBS DC.

The assaults on a pair of Virginian-Pilot reporters in Norfolk, Va., two weeks ago at the hands of 30 black youths, reported for the first time Tuesday, are the latest in a series of attacks driven by a warped sense of racial vigilantism hiding behind calls of “Justice for Trayvon.” At least 15 whites have been beaten not just with fists, but with potentially deadly weapons including hammers and lengths of chain. Many of the victims have been hospitalized, some may never fully recover, and one lingers on the verge of death.

So let me get this right: a "white Hispanic" who has a black heritage, who shoots a black kid (allegedly in self-defense), is national news for weeks on a specious assumption of racism; black folk beating up white folk explicitly because of their skin color in response is no news at all. Got it. PJ Media » ‘Justice for Trayvon’: 15 Whites Beaten By Gangs of Black Thugs… So Far.

Four: If Romney wins this election, odds are he’ll automatically be the Republican nominee in 2016. Regardless of whether he wins then, this will effectively kill all prospects for putting a more serious Republican reformer (such as Wisconsin’s Rep. Paul Ryan) in the White House until 2020 or 2024. It might be far better to swallow hard and accept another Obama term to keep the path clear for a Republican more likely to deal with our fiscal and political dysfunction, rather than elect President Romney and block that possibility for another generation.

Five: The GOP is in a state of intellectual flux, illustrated perfectly by the ideological heterodoxy of its presidential field. Various strains representing different interests are fighting for the soul of the GOP: The neocons are duking it out with anti-war Paulistas. Social moderates are trying to wrest some space from pro-life religious conservatives. Deficits and debt worry everyone, but there is no consensus on entitlement reform. The GOP allegedly stands for the free market--but it has yet to figure out whether Bush’s financial bailout was right or wrong.

via 5 Reasons Why Conservatives Should Root For a Romney Defeat - Reason.com.

In which MWOP, Jeremy Lindblom, and I all discuss the Framework Interoperability Group (née the PHP Standards group). Is it a secret cabal? Are we trying to take over the community? Is a standard style guide going to get shoved down your throat? The answers to these questions and more in the podcast:FIG, FUD & FOMO | Voices of the ElePHPant.

One note: I make a joke about coding style and e. e. cummings; it's something like this: "If you want to write your code in a style like e. e. cummings wrote his poetry, and you're the only one on the project, that's okay. Little o, indent, little k." I lifted it from "Moonlighting."

May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes’ millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny.

Socialism leads to fascism and communism. Via The Volokh Conspiracy » Victims of Communism Day.

Four current and former Transportation Security Administration screeners have been arrested and face charges of taking bribes and looking the other way while suitcases filled with cocaine, methamphetamine or marijuana passed through X-ray machines at Los Angeles International Airport, federal authorities announced Wednesday.

The TSA screeners, who were arrested Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, allegedly received up to $2,400 in cash bribes in exchange for allowing large drug shipments to pass through checkpoints in what the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles called a “significant breakdown” of security.

In addition to the two current and two former screeners, prosecutors also indicted two alleged drug couriers and a third who allegedly tried to smuggle 11 pounds of cocaine but was nabbed when he went through the wrong security checkpoint.

One wonders, what else could a TSA screener be bribed to let through? Via TSA screeners allegedly let drug-filled luggage through LAX for cash - latimes.com.

“Be nice. Be yourself. If you cannot find or keep a commitment minded woman, it is because you are not being nice enough. If girls are breaking up with you or you can’t get past one date, you are not being nice enough. You have to be nicer.

“When you go on a date, it is your DUTY to pay for EVERYTHING. You are to do what she wants. You are to ask her what she wants and then do that. You are not to do anything that she does not want to do. You are to ask her for permission before doing anything.

“With sex -- DON’T. Keep your d**k in your pants. If you want to kiss her, you must ask her first. If you want to hold her hand, you must ask first. You must never, never, NEVER escalate to anything physical unless you ask first. You are not to take anything sexually. You must ask for it.”

“Sex is a Beautiful Experience for a woman. You must never do anything to ruin it for her. You must make sure she orgasms and if she is not it is YOUR FAULT. Women do not like rough, vigorous sex. They like slow, romantic sex with candles and soft music. You must always have sex the way SHE wants to have it.

“Women are always looking for husbands. You are being evaluated all the time for your suitability as a husband. You must show that you are husband material. The way you do that is through immediate investment and commitment. You must go all in immediately on a woman you like.

“You must tell her everything about yourself -- your likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams, plans and desires. You must not hesitate to show your emotions, that you are in touch with and understand your emotions, and that you will come to her for emotional support when you need it. Women love that. You must reveal, be an open book so you have no secrets from her. In this way she will know that it is safe for her to show her emotions, and that you have shown the requisite level of commitment to her and her alone.

“Do all this, and the women will be beating down your door to date, marry and have sex with you. Now go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Via Alpha Game: The training of a Delta.

Then let's disband the thrice-damned TSA.

"The war on terror is over," one senior State Department official who works on Mideast issues told me. "Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism." 

via Can Obama Safely Embrace Islamists? - 2012 Decoded.

[G]lobal warming has not occurred as he had expected.

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.

He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.

Global warming? Sure. Anthropogenic? To some extent. Catastrophic? No. Via World News - 'Gaia' scientist James Lovelock: I was 'alarmist' about climate change.

It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables.

But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.

Within a couple of miles of almost any urban neighborhood, “you can get basically any type of food,” said Roland Sturm of the RAND Corporation, lead author of one of the studies. “Maybe we should call it a food swamp rather than a desert,” he said.

Some experts say these new findings raise questions about the effectiveness of efforts to combat the obesity epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods. Despite campaigns to get Americans to exercise more and eat healthier foods, obesity rates have not budged over the past decade, according to recently released federal data.

“It is always easy to advocate for more grocery stores,” said Kelly D. Brownell, director of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, who was not involved in the studies. “But if you are looking for what you hope will change obesity, healthy food access is probably just wishful thinking.”

via Food Deserts and Obesity Role Challenged - NYTimes.com.