Not since Dylan played the Albert Hall has there been a hotter ticket. MPs expected such demand for seats in the Boothroyd Room of Portcullis House next Tuesday that the appearance of Rebekah Brooks before the culture and media committee was due to be relayed by video to an overspill room – even before Rupert Murdoch and his son James performed the latest in a week of jaw-dropping U-turns and agreed to join her.That's the statement at the clip above, via the extraordinary roundup at the New York Times yesterday, "Updates on British Phone-Hacking Scandal."
It is certain to be an occasion worth clearing your diary for. The last time Brooks condescended to be questioned by MPs, she made the striking admission that the Sun had paid police for information – a statement that she later explained did not mean that she knew of any actual cases of police being paid by her journalists. A decade, several arrests and an entire newspaper have passed since then, and this time there is rather more to talk about.
Murdoch senior's defence of his embattled empire will now be the main event, but it's the under-bill bout with Brooks that I'll be looking forward to most. Such has been the media preoccupation with Cameron's curiously trusting relationship with one former Murdoch editor (yes, I plead guilty) that his much closer embrace of Brooks has undergone little scrutiny.
What else could you possibly want? Well, maybe beer and beautiful women, but we have them, too! Pay attention!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
News International CEO Rebekah Brooks
Rupert Murdoch Agrees to Face Parliament
Check Google's news page for Rupert Murdoch. See Mediagazer as well.
Also, at New York Times, "Murdochs Now Say They Will Appear Before Parliament."
LONDON — In an abrupt reversal, the News Corporation said on Thursday afternoon that Rupert Murdoch and his son James would testify next week before a British parliamentary panel looking into phone hacking. They will appear along with Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of the company’s beleaguered British newspaper group, known as News International.
Earlier in the day, the Murdochs had sent letters to the panel, the Commons Culture Select Committee, refusing an invitation to appear.
Plus, Rupert Murdoch's interviewed at Wall Street Journal, "In Interview, Murdoch Defends News Corp."
In his first significant public comments on the tabloid newspaper scandal that has engulfed his media empire, News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch vigorously defended the company's handling of the crisis but said it would establish an independent committee to "investigate every charge of improper conduct."RELATED: At WSJ, "News Corp. Caves as Support Fades."
In an interview, Mr. Murdoch said News Corp. has handled the crisis "extremely well in every way possible," making just "minor mistakes."
News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
'They hate. Their whole personas are defined by unreasoning, unceasing, unhinged hatred. Hatred defines them. Hatred gives them purpose'
That's AoSHQ commenting, perfectly, on the progressive left: "Drunken Angry Cow Who Yells At Strangers In Public Won't Comment Further On Her Antisocial Behavior":
So: This woman was drunk, vile, and incompetent. If only she had been able to restrain her unreasoning, unquenchable hatred, perhaps if she were capable of being rational and cool, she could have avoided her little psychosexual cartharsis of confronting the guy she secretly wishes to have sex with, and maybe he wouldn't have put it on his credit card, and then maybe she'd have an actual story -- Paul Ryan drinks $700 in wine and illegally permits "friends" to pick up the check.Well, she's a progressive (cow). They don't think so much as emote. But enough redundancy. And ICYMI, this ANONYMOUS SFL (not ASFL because I'm not sure if this cow is adult), really goes off in the comments at SEK's.
Could have happened! We have no way of knowing now, as Professor Drinky McCapillaryBurst tipped off her surveillance subject to the fact she was keeping a (googly, alcohol-bouyed) eye on him.
But she was too drunk, stupid, and emotionally florid to play that kind of cool let's-see-where-this-goes game. She needed to make a scene (drunks always do) and so she did.
These people are sick. I'm tempted to cuss, but my refined sense is in contol.
The Self-Congratulatory Smugness of Internet Culture
Am I whining? Sure. But I submit that the whining of traditional journalists (you know, the kind of people who punched their tickets on newspaper police beats where they learned quaint notions of fairness and accuracy and keeping one's opinions out of it and all that) is nothing compared to the self-congratulatory smugness of internet culture, which tells us at least five times before breakfast that it is the Great New Thing.Rauch argues blogging's glory days are done. Perhaps. But as I've discussed recently, it's really old media that bitten the dust. We'll have some kind of new media, blogs or something else, and citizens will drive an increasing portion of what's news, and they'll keep the establishment more honest than ever before. I like it.
RELATED: From Belladonna Rogers, "The Unbearable Smugness of Liberals: A Guide for the Perplexed."
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Robert Stacy McCain Slushee Blogging
See: "How to Be the Best Dad Ever."
This is funny:
Newt Gingrich announced his presidential campaign raised $2 million in three months. Newt endorsed Scozzafava, went cruising the Aegean Sea, has a million-dollar line of credit at Tiffany, and Republican donors give him $2 million for a campaign that was doomed before it ever started. I fought the good fight for Doug Hoffman in NY-23, yet I can’t even get enough money for a trip to Alabama.This is whiny:
In response to that [Althouse] post, at least three of my “friends” in the blogosphere accused me of mere traffic-baiting. Of course, Little Miss Attila’s malicious jest was to be expected, but the others surprised me.And, well, I was just giving ole' R.S. McCain a hard time, but Stogie was a little more pointed: "When News Is Slow, Invent a Controversy: R.S. McCain vs Ann Althouse." And in the comments there, Adrienne from Adrienne's Corner:
I think Stacy is a brilliant writer and a really bright person. He doesn't need to do things like that to get hits.Actually, my first quotation above attests to Robert's talent (and more on Althouse later), although I'm not going to put a little link-baiting past him. Heck, I got some traffic out if it myself! Learn from the master!
Ann Althouse's popularity is a mystery to me...
And about that "'friends' in the blogosphere" line? Friends are friends, right? I mean, when I meet Tim Daniel for a political event, and we share a few beers, I'm not separating him into "friends" vs. "friends in the blogosphere." And I've met Robert Stacy McCain a number of times now, and we spent a couple of days together last year, when the Crimson Tide went to the Rose Bowl. Shoot, we're BFF dude! (Added: How do you make BFF plural? BFFs doesn't really work, but BFsF? That doesn't look so cool.)
Anyway, hit the guy's tip jar. Those kids are persuasive!
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Ann Althouse a Rube? Nah, Robert Stacy McCain's Just Trolling for Traffic
We know Althouse breaks political convention, and she's been hammering Obama for some time now. Besides, you just like posting her picture.
I like this one:Added: Now a Memeorandum thread, with The Lonely Conservative, "Was Voting for Obama Rational?"
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Midweek Getaway to Mirage Las Vegas
My wife and I arrived last night at Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas. It's our first stay here, and I'm impressed. We have a suite on the 21st floor. The room is well appointed and luxurious:
That console at the foot of the bed hosts a television, which elevates when turned on:
Here's the sitting area, with another high-quality television, and the second bath (this one with a shower, the other with a whirlpool).
At breakfast this morning, the beard is gone --- and all the gray. My wife said I look "so much younger." Well, thanks!
And out front, the view across the Las Vegas Strip. That's the Venetian Hotel & Casino:
Looking down the Strip toward Treasure Island and Steve Wynn's properties:
Another shot of the Venetian:
Looking back at the Mirage from the sidewalk:
Back inside, here's the box office and a display. We're going to the 9:30pm show. I was thinking, what the heck? We just learned that John Lennon was going Republican by 1980. All the more fun!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
7 Million Down, Only 33 Million to Go...
And I just want to say, "Hey, guys, congratulations — and don't be getting too cocky, alright? Ha!"
It turns out Ann Althouse had a blogging milestone the other day as well, 40 million hits!
Now that's some traffic!
And how's it done? Well, Doug Ross offers a 10-trick guide: "Advice for a Young Blogger: How to get a million or less hits on your blog over some unspecified period of time, maybe." I like this part, tip #4:
Try to keep content fresh and stories flowing, even if it means running a group blog or having guest bloggers. People don't visit sites that are static. If nothing changes between visits, there's really not a reason to surf to your site. As for myself, each day since January 9, 2009, I've posted Larwyn's Linx, my roundup of important stories. No matter what else is happening, regular readers can at least get a daily snapshotof my favorite articles.Excellent advice (and RTWT), and I want to give Doug some extra kudos for keeping up the Linkfest with such consistent excellence. That's an achievement all by itself. Meanwhile, Robert Stacy McCain takes a bit different approach: "‘Like Losing Your Virginity …’"I've written about blogging success numerous times before, and I hope readers have learned something. Checking back on some of the old posts I'm reminded of political science research on the gatekeeper effect in the blogosphere, which holds:
Blogs with large numbers of incoming links offer both a means of filtering interesting blog posts from less interesting ones, and a focal point at which bloggers with interesting posts, and potential readers of these posts can coordinate. When less prominent bloggers have an interesting piece of information or point of view that is relevant to a political controversy, they will usually post this on their own blogs. However, they will also often have an incentive to contact one of the large “focal point” blogs, to publicize their post. The latter may post on the issue with a hyperlink back to the original blog, if the story or point of view is interesting enough, so that the originator of the piece of information receives more readers. In this manner, bloggers with fewer links function as “fire alarms” for focal point blogs, providing new information and links. This reduces the need for bloggers at the top of the link structure to engage in “police patrols” to gather information on their own...The point still holds, although at the time of publication social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter hadn't taken off, so I'm convinced that self-promotion and networking can help newbies break into the top tier much more quickly than in earlier days of the blogosphere. And frankly, I think there's less consensus on the "top tier" itself, since reader self-segregation and the sheer number of excellent blogs makes those earlier hierarchical effects less meaningful or pronounced.
In any case, here's an interesting flashhack: "Blogging While Female: 5 Conservative Women Bloggers Talk About Gender Issues And The Blogosphere."
Google to Retire Blogger!
With the launch of Google+ there's some other developments in store as well, called "brand unification."
See Mashable!, "EXCLUSIVE: Google To Retire Blogger & Picasa Brands in Google+ Push."
Say goodbye to the Picasa and Blogger names: Google intends to retire several non-Google name brands and rename them as Google products, Mashable has learned.Meanwhile, it looks like Ann Althouse has gotten the full archives from Google, and should be making her switch-over soon. See, "'Hello. I am on the Blogger team and am one of the guys who has been helping Ann with her blog...'"
The move is part of a larger effort to unify its brand for the public launch of Google+, the search giant’s social initiative.
Blogger and Picasa aren’t going away, of course — they’re two of Google’s most popular products. Instead, according to two sources familiar with the matter, Google intends to rename Picasa “Google Photos” and Blogger will become “Google Blogs.” Several other Google brands are likely to be affected, though our sources made it clear that YouTube would not be rebranded. The technology giant shut down Google Video, its failed web video service, in May.
Are You Reading Theo Spark?

Lovely blogging over there.
Today's pic dump and news roundup, for example, and also some Tuesday totties and bonus babes.
And check out Maggie's Farm too! "Tuesday morning links - It's really summer now."
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Dr. Helen Smith — 'On Fire but Blacked Out: The Thomas Ball Story'
As one of my commenters pointed out in a post I put up on the case, when a woman burns her husband to death in his sleep, it’s seen as a major wake-up call regarding violence against women, and is immortalized in an award-winning movie starring Farah Fawcett titled The Burning Bed.RTWT (via Dr. Helen on Bloggger). And then compare to Rob Taylor at Red State, "The Death of Morality and the End of America." Red State? Some people writing on the right are really on the left, although they they think they're more right than the conservative right. But to be honest, the dude's not right in the head. Seriously. Psychologically FUBAR, IMHO.
But somehow, when a man like Thomas Ball burns himself up, it is not seen as a wake-up call for how men are treated unjustly by the court system. Instead, some “compassionate souls” see his death as yet another wake-up call regarding the needs of women. Do men ever matter to these “feminists,” or do they get pleasure out of men’s pain? I am thinking the latter.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Summertime in Temecula!
And no worries, Dana! I still have the beard!
More blogging late tonight or early tomorrow!
Thanks for reading!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Pechanga Getaway
Here's the view from my room, Northeast, earlier today, about 6:00pm. Beautiful:
And speaking of rooms with a view, have you been reading Andrew Sullivan? I haven't, but since E.D. Kain's been featured here recently, my web surfing's taken over me over to RAWMUSCLEGLUTES' page, at The Daily Beast. (And his latest "View From Your Window.")
Melanie Phillips Quits Britain's Spectator Magazine
There's very little written regarding an explanation why, although Phillips writes: "Those interested to learn more can do so in the update on this CiF Watch post, the original quote from which led to this apology." The apology issued was to Alastair Crooke, Director of Conflicts Forum, "an international movement which engages with Islamist movements broadly ..."
Given Mr. Crooke's background, folks probably have an inkling as to what happened: Melanie blogged about Crooke, he got mad, launched legal action, harming the Spectator financially, and Melanie Phillips felt it necessary to resign.
That just the line of logic, but let's see if I can piece some of this together. For one thing, reports indicate that Alastair Crooke, a former member of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency, had direct and ongoing contacts with Hamas as part of his official business at the British consulate in East Jerusalem. A 2007 blog post by Israeli Eliyahu m'Tsiyon has the details, including a quotation from Melanie Phillips which is no longer available elsewhere. And London's far-left Guardian reported on this, "UK recalls MI6 link to Palestinian militants." These are some really sinister dealings, and Phillips wrote about them. See Jihad Watch, "Melanie Phillips on Alistair Crooke." And following the links takes us to FrontPage Magazine, "Alistair Crooke's Meeting with Sheikh Yassin." I don't see the exact date of Crooke's departure from MI6, but even left-wing sources report on his deep ties to global terrorism. See Mother Jones, "The Spy Who Loved Hamas. And Hezbollah. And Iran."
Now note that the Spectator published an apology to Alastair Crooke, cited by Roy Greenslade at the Guardian:
A blog by Melanie Phillips posted on Jan 28 2011 reported an allegation that Alastair Crooke, director of Conflicts Forum, had been expelled from Israel and dismissed for misconduct from Government service or the EU after threatening a journalist whose email he had unlawfully intercepted. We accept that this allegation is completely false and we apologise to Mr Crooke.Again, I'm piecing things together, but it looks like Spectator issued the apology as part of a legal settlement, which has the New Statesman's Mehdi Hasan jumping for joy:
... was this a voluntary or enforced departure? The blogger Guido Staines beat me to it, but I can't help but notice how the Spectator has had to apologise to Alastair Crooke, director of Conflicts Forum, on its website this week, after a blogpost by Phillips made "false" allegations about Crooke's past. Phillips's decision to move on might just be a coincidence but a well-connected source tells me that the payout to Crooke cost the Spectator "tens of thousands of pounds" and left Fraser Nelson and Andrew Neil "furious" with her.So we're now back to Melanie Phillips' blog entry, where she writes, "For legal reasons, I cannot go into the details."
The legal reasons appear to be (further) threats of legal action, but Melanie Phillips has rejected the premise of the apology. And CiF Watch says Phillips made "no such" allegation regarding threats from Alastair Crooke.
Well, we know that Alastair Crooke's collaborating with terrorist organizations, and as Melanie Phillips was writing about it, my sense is that someone made threats, and since this controversy involves people at the highest levels of British power, clearly some pro-jihadists had strong incentive to destroy Melanie Phillips. And what's more fascinating is that so called right-wing outlets are simply crippling under threats and apparent litigation. Indeed, Mehdi Hasan can't contain his glee:
Blinded by their monomaniacal obsession with Islamists under every British bed, members of the UK media's neoconservative faction have been the subject of other (successful) legal complaints and libel actions in recent years.
These legal complaints look sketchy, "successful" or not, given all that we know about Alastair Crooke. Clearly, if Melanie Phillips was speaking truth to power her own health and livelihood became increasingly at risk. And this is something I've been writing about quite a bit, since Scott Eric Kaufman and Carl Salonen launched campaigns of workplace intimidation against me, including libelously false allegations of sexual harassment, with potentially very damaging personal consequences, simply for speaking truth to their evil deeds. And while I'm not an author of such prominence as Melanie Phillips, some allegations against me have gone all the way to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, a Democrat. So the similarity is to the lengths at which progressives will go to literally destroy those who speak the truth. Remember, for radical leftists and jihad enablers, "truth is the new hate speech." And I want to remind people of my report on Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, who announced on Canadian television:
The thing is, you don't care about freedom of speech until you've lost it. But I'm here to tell you that I will never, ever give up the fight for freedom of speech.Neither will I.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Andrew Breitbart is New York Times' Blogger Provocateur
See, "The Right’s Blogger Provocateur."
The Other McCain responds: "The Semi-Smear."
Below, as promised, is the video from the Breitbart talk in Newport Beach. And buy a copy of Righteous Indignation here.
Power Line Making Switch-Over to Wordpress
Power Line's been on a Movable Type platform for almost ten years, not Blogger, so it's interesting in light of the other recent upgrades, at Legal Insurrection, for example. But what I noticed at Power Line, at the bottom of the page, is that all three of the original bloggers are listed, John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Paul Mirengoff. But recall that Mirengoff's no longer a Power Line blogger. He's no longer featured at the "About Us" page. There is a partial archive for Mirengoff, but the timeline cutoff seems totally arbitrary. Entries are available up through February 2009, and it's something worth an explanation in the context of the shameful campaign of PC destruction against Mirengoff early this year, when he criticized the memorial services for Gabrielle Giffords at the University of Arizona in Tuscon. I watched live, and personally thought the opening blessing delivered by Dr. Carlos Gonzales of the University of Arizona College Medicine was a politically correct nightmare. It was a indigenous time-waster of Native American PC overkill, and frankly, Dr. Gonzales seemed like an amateur in performing the ritual. But you can't criticize criticize stuff like that in the U.S., or not if you want to keep your job. Mirengoff wrote a post, long since deleted, strongly criticizing the event, "An evening in Tucson — the good, the bad, and the ugly":
…I didn't appreciate the president of the University of Arizona (and master of ceremonies) telling us how lucky we are to have Barack Obama as our president and Janet Napolitano as our Homeland Security chief. Nor did the frequent raucous cheering by the huge crowd seem appropriate at what was, at least in part, a memorial service.The reaction was fierce. Here's the headline at Right Wing Watch, "Right Wing Blogger In Trouble for Insulting Native American Prayer at Tucson Memorial." And here's this from a PC ayatollah at Crime & Federalism, "Paul Mirengoff Humiliates Himself and Akin Gump":
As for the "ugly," I'm afraid I must cite the opening "prayer" by Native American Carlos Gonzales. It was apparently was some sort of Yaqui Indian tribal thing, with lots of references to "the creator"
but no mention of God. Several of the victims were, as I understand it, quite religious in that quaint Christian kind of way (none, to my knowledge, was a Yaqui). They (and their families) likely would have appreciated a prayer more closely aligned with their religious beliefs.
But it wasn't just Gonzales's prayer that was "ugly" under the circumstances. Before he ever got to the prayer, Gonzales provided us with a mini-biography of himself and his family and made several references to Mexico, the country from which (he informed us) his family came to Arizona in the mid 19th century.
If you, Paul Mirengoff, honestly do not understand why calling someone's religious invocation "ugly" is insulting, then your professional judgment is suspect. You are a total dipshit moron whom I would never trust to handle a parking ticket for me.Yeah, negative publicity. It happens, but in this case it was costly, because Mirengoff's firm had major contracts with Native American tribes. The backlash came swiftly and forced Mirengoff off the blog. William Jacobson, a law professor who was previously in private practice, criticized Akin Gump's handling of the complaints, "Big Law Firm Takes Down Big Conservative Blogger." Read the whole thing, and note especially William's update: "Eric Boehlert of Media Matters is practically jumping for joy that Mirengoff no longer is blogging, which is what Boehlert had been hoping would happen, 'Note To RW Bloggers: Could Obama Derangement Syndrome Cost You Your Day Job?'" (That post went down the memory hole at Media Matters, most likely because it was way too honest about the progressive program of destruction against people who break from the acceptable narrative --- more about that stuff later, as I'm still working with my lawyer about the related progressive campaigns against American Power.)
Anyhow, here's hoping Mirengoff gets all the negative publicity he deserves.
Anyway, more at The Other McCain, "Power Line Gets Scalped: Did Indian Tribe Money Influence Akin Gump Decision?," and Pope Hat, "I, Paul Mirengoff, Offer Heap Big Apology To My Indian Brothers."
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Saturday Cartoon Roundup
And at Power Line, "TOO LITTLE, WAY TOO LATE: THE CARTOON."
Bonus: At Doug Ross, "Photos: Insane Plane-Spotting Tourists on the Island of St. Maarten."
Ed Morrissey's Visit to Israel
Friday, June 24, 2011
Federal Regulators to Probe Google
At WSJ, "Feds to Launch Probe of Google":
Federal regulators are poised to hit Google Inc. with subpoenas, launching a broad, formal investigation into whether the Internet giant has abused its dominance in Web-search advertising, people familiar with the matter said.I was reminded of the Microsoft anti-trust lawsuit, and the comparison is made further down at the report. Obviously other search companies have complained:
The civil probe, which has the potential to reshape how companies compete on the Internet, is the most serious legal threat yet to the 12-year-old company, though it wouldn't necessarily lead to any federal allegations of wrongdoing against Google.
While Google has faced several antitrust probes in recent years, the U.S. has limited its investigations largely to reviews of the company's mergers and acquisitions. The new inquiry, by contrast, will examine fundamental issues relating to Google's core search-advertising business, its biggest money maker, said the people familiar with the matter.
Those companies said that Google's anticompetitive practices include using other companies' content without their permission, deceptive display of search results, manipulation of search results to favor Google's products, and buying up competitive threats to its dominance.RTWT.
Google—which handles about two-thirds of all U.S. Web searches, according to comScore Inc., and more than 80% in many parts of Europe—has denied doing any of these things. It argues that users can easily navigate to other choices on the Web. In statements, the company has said it "built Google for users, not websites, and our goal is to give users answers."
I enjoy Google products. Blogger and G-mail work well together, and I'm told Blogger blogs search better on Google than Wordpress. We'll see, for like Legal Insurrection, I'm considering a switch-over. Not only because of Blogger's blackout issues, some of the progressives who've attacked American Power long ago threatened a demonization campaign at Blogger to get this blog deleted. I'm sticking with Blogger for now, but one of the biggest reasons folks bail on Blogger is to gain some security and independence for themselves.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Breitbart Responds
And coincidentally, I finished Breitbart's book yesterday, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World! I was almost through with it, and got busy with something else. And I'm also reading a bunch of other stuff, but I came back to finish Righteous Indignation after the Breitbart meetup, which was cool (remember, he'd just gotten back from the Weiner confessional press conference). Anyway, I'll have more to say on the book. If you're a conservative activist, it's almost of Biblical importance. RELATED: From Joy McCann, at The Conservatory, "More on the Right Online-Netroots Nation Interactions."
