Tugging on Superman’s Cape

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Guess who decided to pick a fight with Mark Steyn?

I don’t often respond to Conor Friedersdorf, usually because it would require me to read him . . .
Evidently, my old friends at The Atlantic Monthly feel differently. From that perch, Mr Friedersdorf takes issue with my observations on “honor killings,” and has written to NR’s editors demanding a “correction.” The executive honchos in turn passed his demand on to me, and suggested I take a look at it as they’d been unable to get through it. . . .

Read the whole thing. Suffice it to say that it is not Mr. Steyn who needs correcting.

They Deserve Each Other: Olbermann and Daily Kos Break Up to Make Up?

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There have been more than a few outbreaks of raw crazy on the blogosphere lately, and it’s reassuring to see that the same virus has infested the brackish waters at Daily Kos, where Keith Olbermann asks, “Et tu, Kossacks?”

I used to read a lot about how people here would ‘always have my back’ and trust me this was of palpable value . . .

Read the rest from Dan Riehl, who spares you the necessity of having to click through to the Kososphere. There’s now a Memeorandum thread, with Reason magazine, Jammie Wearing Fool, Weasel Zippers and Don Surber getting into the gloat zone.

When the crazy-virus starts going around, it helps to remember this: It takes two to make a folie à deux.

IG-Gate Update: Federal Judge Stalling Gerald Walpin’s AmeriCorps Case

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Dan Collins at Piece of Work in Progress notes that, more than a year after Gerald Walpin was fired from his job as inspector general overseeing the AmeriCorps program, Walpin’s lawsuit against the Corporation for National and Community Service  is still unresolved. The Washington Times has more:

The most public dispute between the administration and Mr. Walpin involved the IG’s efforts to sanction Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and self-proclaimed friend of the first couple, for a series of ethical and financial improprieties in Mr. Johnson’s use of AmeriCorps grants.
On June 9, 2010, The Washington Times broke the story that AmeriCorps’ parent, Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), ignored its own sanctions against Mr. Johnson for infractions admitted by the mayor by featuring him in an honored speaking slot at the upcoming National Conference on Volunteering and Service June 28 through 30 in New York. By June 11 – the anniversary of the firing – CNCS executives made a series of frantic phone calls that resulted in Mr. Johnson being scrubbed from the list of speakers and removed from the website. The remaining questions are: Who invited Mr. Johnson in the first place, and why?

Walpin’s lawsuit is a major reason that the Obama administration can’t make the IG-Gate story go away.

VIDEO: ‘The View’ Discusses Perez Hilton and the Miley Cyrus Upskirt Photo

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Via Alana Goodman at Newsbusters:

Aleister at American Glob links to Ben Shapiro at Big Hollywood:

Last year, Hilton posted pictures of Tallulah Willis, the 15-year-old daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, wearing revealing a revealing top. Hilton called her a “slut.” Then Hilton posted a picture of Tallulah’s shorts riding up, and labeled it “ASS.”
So there’s a pattern here.

And the pattern — not to put too fine a point on it — is that Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr., seems to have some serious issues regarding female sexuality. The word is Sullivanesque.

Dana Loesch in Playboy?

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Oh, don’t you wish, you creep. The teaser from Instapundit was effective, however, and Dana explains:

I can’t wait to tell my Baptist mother that her daughter is in Playboy.
This month’s issue of Playboy features an interesting article on the tea party movement and in particular, focuses on a particular group of activists, myself included.

Among the odd things: The anonymous consultant who writes the article takes a shot at Eric Odom and Liberty First PAC as “scavengers.” Dude, WTF? Was that necessary? Also, there is this:

We’ve quietly acquired Service Employees International Union shirts to wear at Tea Party rallies.

Yeah, I figured that out. I know some of the people in this guy’s network, and I don’t believe he was authorized to disclose that operational detail. There will be repercussions.

UPDATE: “I know him very well,” my source says of the consultant who wrote the article. The SEIU T-shirt detail was “old news,” says my source, but the shot at Eric Odom still requires explanation, at least in my mind. Odom’s a good guy, and didn’t deserve that.

UPDATE II: What kind of man reads Playboy? Moe Lane. But only for the Tea Party articles. Aaron Gardner highlights the problem that arose when Deb Medina in Texas refused to disavow 9/11 Truther conspiracy theories.

New Alabama Ad: Who Is Dale Peterson Endorsing in the July 13 Runoff?

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UPDATE: On his own campaign Web site, Peterson makes his endorsement of John McMillan.

UPDATE II: Having been the first to post this video (6:04 a.m. ET), it’s kind of annoying to see Ben Smith getting the linkage for a post he did five hours later. I’m trying to avoid Charles Johnson Syndrome here. There’s been too much blog-crazy lately, and that stuff’s contagious, you know. Thank God for Moe Lane.

Heartache: ‘Female Viagra’ Fails

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No little blue pills for you, ladies:

 The drug didn’t boost women’s desire any more than a placebo in two clinical trials. . .  [t]he FDA staff who reviewed the results said the so-called response rate isn’t “particularly compelling.”
In a statement posted on the FDA website, manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim maintains that flibanserin really works, while acknowledging it’s better at increasing a woman’s “global desire” than “the intensity of [her] acute episodes of desire.” That phrasing suggests the drug’s effects are, well, rather subtle.
Trouble is, flibanserin has side effects that may outweigh its tepid benefits. About 15 percent of flibanserin users in the experimental trial stopped taking the drug because of bad reactions like dizziness, nausea, anxiety and insomnia.

This means guys trying to stimulate women’s sexual desire will have to resort to old-fashioned remedies like moonlight, music, wine and diamonds. 

Meanwhile, in other scientific breakthrough news, researchers have found that being fat is bad for your sex life. Being old, poor and ugly is also bad for your sex life. But we don’t need scientific research to tell us this.

FL-24: Cronyism Has Consequences

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Last week, Dan Riehl uncovered a worrisome situation in a Florida GOP primary. With multiple candidates seeking the Republican nomination to take on powerful Democratic incumbent Rep. Suzanne Kosmas in the 24th District, the National Republican Congressional Committee put its thumb on the scales. Dan alleged what would be an obvious conflict of interest:

I’ve also been told that Tandy Harrison, wife of NRCC executive director Guy Harrison is [Karen] Diebel’s PAC fund raiser.

Is there any Republican who thinks this kind of arrangement is fair to the other FL-24 candidates? And am I the only one who sees here a faint echo of former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer’s recent problems?

Not that there is anything illegal here, but it still looks like the kind of political “insider trading” that makes people cynical about the process. Now, Dan has uncovered still more unfortunate news:

A second troubling police report involving Karen Diebel has emerged, one suggesting she may have been subjected to a short-term involuntary commitment for mental health issues by police as recently as September of 2008.

You can and should read the rest of that. Personally, I’m sympathetic toward Mrs. Diebel. Her husband was killed a few years ago in a tragic accident, and maybe she just seemed emotional enough to worry the cops who answered the 911 call.

Dan says “there is no way Karen Diebel makes it through a very competitive general election without being confronted on this issue,” which may or may not be true. My larger concern is that the suggestion of favoritism in NRCC’s Young Guns program could hurt the GOP by giving grassroots supporters of other candidates the idea that the “fix is in” and that party insiders are calling the shots.