The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 06.14.23

Posted on | June 15, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 06.14.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: San Francisco Has Morphed Into East Germany
EBL: Anime Girl, also, Indictment Day in Florida
Twitchy: Lefty Loser Threatens Conservatives That Come To His Tattoo Shop – It Doesn’t Go Well, also, Biden’s Preferred Parish Celebrating An LGBTWTFBBQ Pride Mass
Louder With Crowder: TikToker celebrates trans joy, takes “her” t*ts out after meeting Joe Biden as LGBTQ conquers the White House, also, Garth Brooks doubles down on his (kinda) Bud Light support
Vox Popoli: The Evacuation of Taiwan, Why Clown World Fears Russia, Waving the White Flag, Urban Death Spiral, and Africa in the UK

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Nefarious
American Conservative: A Forgotten History
American Greatness: Veterans Rip Into Biden Administration for Pride Flag Display, Multiple Target Stores Nationwide Receive Bomb Threats From Left-Wing Terrorists Over ‘Betrayal of LGBTQ+ Community’, and GOP Senators Blast FBI Deputy Director During Senate Hearing on FISA Reauthorization: ‘You’re Stonewalling and Covering Up Evidence!’
American Thinker: Four More Startling and Uncomfortable Ways Today’s Leftists Emulate the Nazis, Foretelling America’s Descent into Totalitarianism, and The Nuclear Theory You Never Knew Was Nonsense
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Technology News
Babalu Blog: Cuban Peso-U.S. Dollar exchange rate sinks to record levels, China to sink its claws more deeply into Honduras after state visit from President Xiomara Castro, and Cuban nun dares to criticize abysmal failure and ‘evil’ of so-called Revolution, sale of country to Russia
BattleSwarm: Why Disney Fails: Their Blindness To Real Geek Culture
Behind The Black: Japanese government adopts revised space policy emphasizing defense, Arianespace signs deal to study the possibility of using Orbex’s commercial rocket for launches, Boeing gets NASA contract to develop new airplane wing design, New House bill proposes giving FAA responsibility for monitoring space junk, and Today’s blacklisted American was arrested for quoting the Bible
Cafe Hayek: Social Security and Medicare Are Going Broke, also, On the Relevance of Economics
CDR Salamander: “Optimal Manning’s” International Disgrace – Norwegian Edition
Da Tech Guy: Tom Hagan Math in Canada, …And Faith in Louisiana, and The forest vs. the trees
Dana Loesch: The White House Only Condemned Trans Activist’s Topless Pride Stunt Because It Made Them Look Bad
Don Surber: What Is DeSantis Thinking?
First Street Journal: The #ClimateChange activists want more people to move to large cities
Gates Of Vienna: We Are the Carbon They Want to Remove, Burned Alive by a Culture-Enricher, The EU Welcomes the Youth of the Muslim Brotherhood, Must be Something in the Water, and Was the Knifeman of Annecy in Reality a Muslim?
The Geller Report: Biological Man Wins Female Cycling Race by FIVE MINUTES
Glenn Reynolds: Making The Problem Bigger
Hogewash: That Didn’t Age Well, Eta Carinae, I’ll Bet This Won’t Age Well, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, and Moons Across Jupiter
Hollywood In Toto: Rob Schneider Tackles Woke, Womanhood (and Trump) in FOX Nation Special, More Artists Self-Censor to Avoid Woke Mob, and Unwelcome Rolls Out Blood-Red Carpet for Genre Fans
The Lid: Grassley Exposes Christopher Wray’s Cover Up
Legal Insurrection: Lawsuit Claims Dartmouth College is Misusing Millions Left by Donor in His Will, California Assembly Bill 957’s Co-Author May Be Aiming to Replace Nancy Pelosi, ‘Schizophrenic’ Trans Student Admitted to Northwestern Law Published Bizarre Rants in Law Journal, Trump Pleads Not Guilty in Classified Documents Case, and Statue of Revolutionary War Hero Philip Schuyler Removed From City Hall in Albany, NY
Nebraska Energy Observer: Explain this
Outkick: Shannon Sharpe Says Goodbye To Undisputed After 7 Years, Paige Spiranac Hops Into A USA Bikini For The U.S. Open, Nikola Joki? Completely Uninterested In NBA Championship Parade, NASCAR Star Bubba Wallace Suggests Double Standard In Reaction To His Antics After Middle-Finger Drama, The Empire Is Back! LSU Baseball Dynasty Returns To Omaha, and Omaha Bound: Texas Loses To Stanford In The Most Brutal Way Possible, Following Crazy Non-HR Celebration
Power Line: Corruption case against the Bidens is on the verge of exploding, The Democratic Party Is Run by Graduate Students, Why Aren’t Red States Red?, and The Age of Proprietary Truth
Shark Tank: Salazar Introduces Venezuelan Adjustment Act With Bipartisan Support
Shot In The Dark: You’re Being Gaslit, Heads You’re Racist/Tails You’re Destroying The Climate,
STUMP: Suicide: Trends 1999-2022 (provisional) by Sex and Race/Ethnicity
The Political Hat: The Irrelevance Of Innocence
This Ain’t Hell: Article suggests lessons to be learned from Ukraine conflict
Transterrestrial Musings: The Allure Of Ruins, Law-School Lunacy, Engineered White Blood Cells, and Woodrow The Terrible
Victory Girls: DA George Gascon Uses Star Chamber Against Critics
Volokh Conspiracy: Why Legal Immigration is Almost Impossible for the Vast Majority of those Who Want it, also, How America’s Growing Diversity Weakens the Case for Racial Preferences in Education
Watts Up With That: CO2 Pipelines in the Midwest: The Brewing Conflict Between Energy, Environment, and Property Rights, also, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie: Power Grid is Facing ‘Dire Consequences’ Due to Coal & Gas Retirements
Weasel Zippers: Report: Multiple Target Stores Across U.S. Hit With Bomb Threats For “Betraying The LGBTQ+ Community”, House Dem Chair Says He’s “Not Concerned” About Biden Corruption Allegations, Biden State Dept DEI Officer Wants $76 Million, and Senator: Secret Recordings Allegedly Exist As “Blackmail” On Joe, Hunter Biden
The Federalist: This Is Your Sign To Peel Your Kids Away From Their Screens And Send Them Outdoors, Support For Transgenderism Is Cratering, Grassley’s ‘17 Recordings’ Bombshell Brings Bidens And Burisma Back Into The Spotlight, R.I. Dad Files Complaint Against Pediatrician For Using ‘Thuggish Force’ To Give His Daughters Covid Jab, McCarthy Torches CNN For Hiring McCabe, Clapper To Weigh In On The Ongoing ‘Get Trump’ Op They Helped Run, and A Pregnancy Care Center Helped Me Become A Mom And Follower Of Jesus
Mark Steyn: The Ministry of Counter-Disinformation

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Category: Linkagery

Another Day, Another Deadline

Posted on | June 14, 2023 | 1 Comment

“There was never enough time. Every deadline was a crisis. All around me were experienced professional journalists meeting deadlines far more frequent than mine, but I was never able to learn from their example.”
– Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72

MEMO FROM THE NATIONAL DESK
This morning, at precisely 6:09 a.m. ET, I created a Word document with the idea of whipping out a quick column for The American Spectator. When I took a break about 7:30 a.m., it was already more than 700 words long, so I sent the top to my editors with an inquiry as to when the deadline was for me to send over the finished product for online publication Thursday. Back in the day when I was campaign-trail road warrior, Wlady Pleszczynski was always the guy on the editing desk. Wlady’s a night owl, so my usual deadline was midnight, but even that was often a challenge, as for example my frenzied pounding away at 1 a.m. to file from the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Anyway, Wlady’s health has caused him to cut back his duties, so that he only works the weekend shift now, and The American Spectator now has two young women working as editors on the weekdays, so my habitual last-minute midnight blitz to deadline won’t do. Six o’clock, they said, and I thought, “Piece of cake.” Just finish up my work for the day job in the morning, then there’d be plenty of time to leisurely proceed to that evening deadline. The Journalism Gods laugh at my hubris.

 
Throwing in The Big Yellow Button because I suspect some nearsighted readers may overlook the regular-size PayPal button with the imperative verb “DONATE.” Otherwise, I’d have to entertain the possibility that you don’t enjoy my work as much as you used to, or perhaps the recent paucity of output perturbs you. Honestly, I do have a day job now, one I never discuss on the blog because . . . Well, the Cancel Culture mob is always looking to make trouble for us Thought Criminals. And since we’re now on the topic of crime, how about this dangerous felon?

Say hello to Michael “Norah” Horwitz:

On Saturday, Michael Horwitz was arrested after fatally stabbing his father, Dr. Abbey Horwitz, at their home in Virginia Beach.
The 34-year-old, who identifies as a transgender woman and goes by the name Norah, has been charged with second-degree murder and stabbing in the commission of a felony.
According to the Virginia Beach Police Department, officers were called to the 1300 block of Wren Place just before 9 am Saturday. When they arrived, they discovered Dr. Horwitz, 68, suffering from “multiple stab wounds.” First responders performed emergency medical treatment, but to no avail. He was pronounced dead at 9:13 am.
In their release, the VBPD noted Horwitz’s full legal name, but added “Norah” in parentheses. Horwitz was also listed as female and authorities noted that “she” was being held in custody at the Virginia Beach Jail.
According to Reduxx, Horwitz appeared in court on Monday and was assigned a public defender after expressing that as a low-income worker, hiring a lawyer was too expensive.
Dr. Horwitz was a dentist and served as President of the Hebrew Academy of Tidewater and President of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. The Art of Dentistry, Dr. Horwitz’s practice, said in a biography that he was married to his wife for over 25 years, with the two having three children.
Michael Horwitz was also a drag performer under the name “Menorah Horwitz” in Portland, Oregon. Horwitz wrote a series of stories for the Portland Mercury in June 2017 regarding Pride month.
In 2016 Horwitz performed alongside drag queen “Sharon Needles,” who was on the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Horwitz also published a book titled “The Diary of Menorah Horwitz,” which describes his combination of “Judaism and a love of drag in all the wrong ways when he becomes Menorah, Portland’s premiere Anne Frank impersonator,” according to a synopsis of the book.

Don’t you feel sorry for him/“her”? He/“she” is now an orphan!

Sarcasm aside, the story of “Menorah Horwitz” actually turned out to be relevant to the topic of my American Spectator column, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise too much. At any rate, after wrapping up my day-job work and taking a shower, it was 4 o’clock before I headed down here to Sheetz, where I could use their WiFi and concentrate on finishing that column which, as always, took longer than I’d expected. How is it that after all these years, I’m still plagued by this problem?

Hunter S. Thompson never solved his Deadline Crisis Syndrome either, but I would hate to follow his example too closely, consider how that ultimately worked out. Anyway, I managed to file 1,900 words before 6:30 and the girls on the desk said that was OK, so it should be online tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ve been paying for coffee here at Sheetz to legitimize my use of their WiFi and, believe it or not, next week I’ll be blogging with an Alaska dateline, for reasons that I’ll explain once I get there, but that trip won’t be cheap, so for now, I’ll just ask readers to recall the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!



 

 

Category: Fear. Loathing., Shoe Leather Fund, Uncategorized

Approaching the Nadir of Wokeness

Posted on | June 13, 2023 | Comments Off on Approaching the Nadir of Wokeness

How far down the slippery slope of “woke” craziness have we slid? Well, California is evidently ready to mandate insurance coverage for gay men hiring women to be surrogate babymakers:

California lawmakers are advancing a bill that would redefine the inability of men to get pregnant as “infertility” and entitle them to insurance-covered fertility treatments.
The legislation, which passed in the Senate late last month and is about to be taken up by the Assembly, would require employer-sponsored insurance plans to cover all nonexperimental fertility treatments, including artificial insemination of pregnancy surrogates. Supporters of the legislation have touted it as an overdue step toward “fertility equality” for LGBT people.
Freshman state senator Caroline Menjivar (D.), who coauthored the bill with Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D.), said: “It will ensure that queer couples no longer have to pay more out of pocket to start families than non-queer families. … This bill is critical to achieving full-lived equality for LGBTQ+ people, as well as advancing well-rounded and comprehensive health care for all Californians.”
In liberal California, opposition to the bill, S.B. 729, has been mild and focused on concerns about ballooning insurance premiums. But the measure is part of a nascent campaign by LGBT rights advocates that could open a new front in the national culture war over gender.
California already requires health care insurance providers to cover fertility treatments other than in vitro fertilization for policyholders who are medically infertile. The law defines infertility based on a physician’s diagnosis or according to the widely accepted definition of not being able to have a child after a year or more of trying.
The fertility insurance bill would expand the coverage mandate for employers to include IVF and expand the legal definition of infertility to include, “A person’s inability to reproduce either as an individual or with their partner without medical intervention.” Infertility would no longer be defined only as a disease or medical condition but also as a “status,” such as being in a gay or lesbian relationship or being single.
California business and insurance groups have objected to the bill’s projected price tag for employers, even as they have been careful not to criticize its intent. According to an analysis by the California Health Benefits Review Program, the coverage mandates would raise annual premiums for employer-sponsored plans by more than $330 million a year. The California Association of Health Plans said the coverage mandates are the most expensive of 16 that the legislature is considering, which together would add about $1 billion to the premiums. . . .
One of the bill’s nonprofit sponsors, Men Having Babies, describes its broader goal as “to remove financial barriers to surrogacy parenting for gay men worldwide, a cause which we refer to as Fertility Equality.”
“Central to our fight for more equitable access to parenting options is what we know from our combined experiences: The anguish and yearning that same sex couples and singles feel due to their inability to reproduce without medical intervention is equal to the anguish of heterosexual couples who suffer from ‘medical infertility,'” the group says on its website.
Men Having Babies—along with another S.B. 729 sponsor, LGBT powerhouse Equality California—successfully lobbied to insert key language into the bill. The groups also claim to have added LGBT-friendly wording into infertility insurance mandates in Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. California would be the second state, following Illinois in 2021, to adopt a version of their redefinition of infertility.

You really have to give them credit for coining these euphemisms. “Fertility equality” and “more equitable access to parenting options” — phrases like these function as a sort of rhetorical sedative, lulling the listener into a stupor where they can ignore the stark madness of forcing people to subsidize such craziness. Because that’s what this is really about — money. In order to achieve this “equality,” everybody will be forced to pay more for health insurance, to subsidize “access to parenting options” for men disinclined (or unable) to do what men otherwise do to become parents. And if you complain about this, of course, you’re a dangerous extremist and the FBI will soon be wiretapping your phone.



 

 

Category: California, Gays

Chaos in NYPD as Commissioner Resigns

Posted on | June 13, 2023 | Comments Off on Chaos in NYPD as Commissioner Resigns

Keechant Sewell (left) with NYC Mayor Eric Adams

Three kids “horsing around” with a basketball in Brooklyn somehow set in motion a chain of events that has led to the resignation of New York City’s first female police commissioner. One of the first moves Mayor Eric Adams made when he took office in January 2022 was to appoint Keechant Sewell as the new NYPD Commissioner. Adams, himself a retired NYPD officer, was praised for choosing a woman as the city’s top cop. Sewell had spent more than 20 years as a cop in Nassau County.

What does any of this have to do with three kids in Brooklyn? Well, it’s kind of a long story. Sewell had complained that City Hall was interfering with her authority as commissioner:

Sewell’s authority became more tenuous after she sided with the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board’s decision to discipline Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, the department’s highest-ranking uniformed officer.
Maddrey, who was found by the police civilian’s watchdog to have abused his authority in a 2021 gun case, was highly regarded at City Hall, which “wanted him to get a pass,” according to sources.

Having researched this, I can assure you that “2021 gun case” was the biggest nothingburger in the history of nothingburgers, and that if it had happened anywhere else — OK, well, anywhere saner than New York City, at least — nobody ever would have heard about it. Yet somehow, because it is New York City, where everybody’s crazy, it turned into a cause célèbre and has now thrown the entire NYPD into turmoil.

Jeffrey Maddrey (left); Kruythoff Forrester (right)

Let’s begin by acknowledging that everybody involved in this story is black. The mayor’s black, the police commissioner is black, Chief Maddrey is black and so, too, is retired cop Kruythoff Forrester. Therefore, anyone trying to find a “social justice” angle here is going to be disappointed. Whatever else is involved in this story, there’s no “systemic racism” or “white privilege” to blame. So . . . November, 2021:

One of the highest-ranking members of the NYPD is being eyed by Brooklyn prosecutors for his role in getting a retired cop cleared of gun charges, The Post has learned.
The probe centers around an incident from the night before Thanksgiving, when former NYPD Officer Kruythoff Forrester allegedly pulled a gun on a trio of kids in Brownsville, according to sources with knowledge of the ordeal.
Chief Jeffrey Maddrey — who has been bragging to others in the department of his impending promotion with the incoming Eric Adams administration — got wind of the collar, showed up at the 73rd Precinct and ordered officers to void the arrest, sources tell The Post.
Just over 45 minutes later, Forrester was cut free, sources said.
Accompanying the off-duty, three-star chief that night to the stationhouse was Deputy Chief Scott Henderson, commanding officer of Brooklyn North Patrol Borough, sources said.
It’s unclear how Maddrey — who was tapped to run the NYPD’s community outreach last year despite prior scandals involving romantic indiscretions — learned of Forrester’s arrest or how the two men know each other.
The Civilian Complaint Review Board has opened a probe into the incident and referred the officers’ actions, including Maddrey’s involvement, and the gun charge Forrester faced to the Brooklyn DA’s Office Tuesday evening for potential criminal charges, sources said.
The gun case allegedly involving Forrester unfolded on Nov. 24 on Saratoga Avenue, where a trio of boys, ages 12, 13 and 14, were horsing around outside a real estate office that’s owned by the retired cop’s family, sources said.
At one point, one of the boys accidentally tossed a basketball into a camera set up on the outside of the storefront and ran off down Pacific Street.

(Oh, “accidentally”? These three young hooligans just happened to be “horsing around” at night and knocked out a security camera in front of a business “accidentally”? But never mind . . .)

Forrester then allegedly chased after the boys, came up behind them and threatened them with a gun, possibly firing at least one shot, sources said.
The 12-year-old boy sprinted home and called 911, and the other two ran off in a different direction, according to the sources.
The three kids independently gave cops identical accounts of the encounter and described the gun, which matched the description of the loaded pistol found on Forrester when cops questioned him, according to sources.
Forrester never said he feared for his safety or announced himself as current or former law enforcement, according to sources, who added that the ex-cop denied pulling a firearm.
Investigators have a video showing Forrester leaving his storefront and returning — but it doesn’t show the confrontation between him and the kids, sources said. In another video, first reported by The City and found by investigators, the kids can be heard yelling that Forrester had a gun.

See? Nothingburger.

Being chased by an angry gun-waving property owner is the kind of educational opportunity more “youth” in New York City need. There are plenty of places in America where if a property owner had shot such young vandals, no charges would have been filed, and most folks in the community would have said, “Served ’em right.” But whatever else you say about Forrester, he didn’t shoot anybody. He just gave those kids a good scare, and who can fault him for that? These kids nowadays . . .

Now imagine the situation when Chief Maddrey finds out a retired cop has been arrested over this silly nothingburger case. He did exactly what anyone would have expected him to do: Back the Blue, baby.

Being a cop in New York City is a tough job. Every day is Rorke’s Drift, surrounded by screaming hordes of Zulu warriors. Anyone who would volunteer for the job of trying to keep the lid on the boiling cauldron of violent criminality that is New York City deserves a certain amount of deference and, while the liberal wussies on the Civilian Complaint Review Board might fault Chief Maddrey’s exercise of his prerogative, I’d have to rule in his favor. The whole thing was just a nothingburger.

So far, I’m not a big fan of Mayor Adams, but if Commissioner Sewell sided with the review board against Chief Maddrey, I guess I’m glad to see her resign, even though I think the situation at NYPD is likely to go from bad to worse in the future. New York City, like most other major cities in America, is increasingly ungovernable, and my advice to anyone still living there is simple: Get out before it’s too late.



 

 

Category: Crime, New York

In The Mailbox: 06.12.23

Posted on | June 13, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 06.12.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

h/t Andrew Torba on Gab

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What Would You Do If You Called 911 And They Ignored You?
EBL: Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber, Chesterton Sunday, Elizabeth Schuyler, and The Great War of Archimedes
Twitchy: Here’s How Sesame Street Sells Pride Month To Kids, Johns Hopkins: Where Men Are Men And Women Are Non-Men!, and Speaker McCarthy Turns Tables On CNN Reporter
Louder With Crowder: Garth Brooks appears to side with Bud Light, Students jeer Pride video forced on them in MATH class, so the teacher threatens them with weekend detention, and Massive amount of Americans turn AGAINST allowing trans athletes to compete against real girls
Vox Popoli: Banking in Yuan, Regression to the Historical Mean, Officially Outdated, The Testimony of Elie Wiesel, and You Are Not the Topic
Stoic Observations: I’m Squinty

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: To Stand Behind the True Cross
American Conservative: The Bomb Myth, The Drug on Your Phone, and Pitcher Canned for Supporting Bud Light Boycott
American Greatness: Can Trump Clean The Augean Stables on the Potomac?, White House Accused of Violating U.S. Flag Code with Pride Flag Display, and Grassley Bombshell: Burisma Exec Secretly Recorded Conversations With Joe and Hunter Biden Regarding Bribery Scheme
American Power: Chris Begley, The Next Apocalypse
American Thinker: As Biden Abuses Our Republic, His Handlers Abuse Him, Trump Was Right About Russia, and Same Plot, Different Actors
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Swedish parliament calls on the EU to stop financing the Cuban dictatorship, Violent crimes keep intensifying in Cuba along with repression and hunger, Leftovers in communist Cuba, and Some Russian tourists are ‘disappearing’ in Cuba
BattleSwarm: Abbott Gets His Slush Fund Back, Even The Unabomber Couldn’t Stand College Lefties, and This Is Your City On Democrats: Philadelphia
Behind The Black: Red China tests parachutes on recent Long March 3B launch, SpaceX launches another 52 Starlink satellites, SpaceX launches 72 smallsats; lands a Falcon 9 1st stage for the 200th time, Astronomers admit new satellite constellations “are not a threat” to Hubble, and The evidence shows clearly that Biden has worked to squelch Elon Musk and SpaceX
Cafe Hayek: Reducing CO2 Concentrations In the Atmosphere Is Not An End In Itself, Rubio Is Wrong, and Soiled by Socialism
CDR Salamander: Strategy For Facing The Red Chinese & Russian Threat, also, Funding DoD In Inflation & About Replacing Weapons & Ammo Sent To Ukraine
Chicago Boyz: “Cricket Morality”
Da Tech Guy: A Very Basic Question that some in the GOP Need to Answer, Winsome Sears is my President, Can You Say: “Game Set and Match”, and Disney’s Fahrenheit 2023
Don Surber: Why LGBTWTFBBQ Is Losing
First Street Journal: There are times when being courteous is harmful to society, He will not do well in prison, and The Philadelphia Inquirer whines that not enough blacks are getting into the legal marijuana business
Gates Of Vienna: The Visegrád Four Become the Visegrád Two, Your Papers, Please, Here, Take Our Money! Please!, Transgenders are the Vanguard of the Socialist Revolution, and When Migrants Become Pirates
The Geller Report: Authenticated Leaked Video Shows D.C. Cops Were ‘Rioters’ and Instigators at J-6 Protest, 96% of U.S. Climate Data is Corrupted, New Report Finds, George Soros’ Son Takes Over Father’s $25B Empire, and Grounds to Immediately Dismiss All Charges Against Trump
Hogewash: That’s No Space Station. It’s a Moon, Smog, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, and Adventures at a State Party Convention
Hollywood In Toto: 19 Criminally Underrated Movies, The Two Reasons The Bodyguard Became a Sensation, Garth Brooks Goes to ‘Low Places’ in Bud Light Fight, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Might Be Best in Series
The Lid: Mark Levin Blows His Lid Over Trump Indictment “This IS The Insurrection”, also, 36 Years Ago Reagan Uttered His Most Powerful Words, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!’
Legal Insurrection: Muslim and Christian Parents in Ottawa Protest LGBT Policies in Schools, “This is an indictment that comes across as a very public relations-oriented document”, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski Dies in Prison at Age 81, Report: Fox News Sends Tucker Carlson Cease-and-Desist Letter Over Twitter Show, New California Bill Would Punish Parents for not ‘Affirming’ Their Child’s Gender Identity,  and Disgusted Parents Describe Princeton President’s Graduation Address as a ‘Woke Sermon’
Nebraska Energy Observer: Saturday – just for you, First Sunday after Trinity, and Cancelling Anglo-Saxons, Tromp Indicted, and more
Outkick: Deion Sanders Puts Collectives On Blast, Wants Players To Focus On NIL, Getting ‘That Lamar Jackson Bag’, Martina Navratilova Slams Austin Killips After He Wins Another Women’s Race, Brittney Griner Wasn’t In Danger, And She’s Not An ‘American Hero’ Despite Narrative, Charles Barkley Says His Upcoming CNN Show Feels Like ‘Jumping On The Titanic’, Ump Show Unfolds After Blatant Missed Strikeout Leads To Home Run That Cost Alabama Super Regional Win, and Breanna Stewart Calls For Chartered Flights For Brittney Griner After She Was Asked Questions In An Airport
Power Line: Six theses on the Trump indictment, Last Act for the Unabomber?, and Now They Tell Us!
Shark Tank: DeSantis Disses Trump-Appointed SCOTUS Justices, also, DeSantis Dubbed “Grand Wizard” At Tony Awards [Robert Byrd could not be reached for comment.]
Shot In The Dark: The Racket, 36 Years Ago Today, and A County of Cowards
STUMP: Podcast: Failure, Sunk Costs, and Candace Wheeler, also, Data Visualization: People and Books in 1946
The Political Hat: The Surrey Police Are Big Brother
This Ain’t Hell: Former Marine Pat Robertson dies, Army Veteran, who disarmed club attacker, to lead pride parade, Fake soldier’s appearance at remembrance event results in his exposure, Russians use $14M chopper – to kill an ag sprayer, Phony special forces man accused of punching his girlfriend, and Base Drag Show Ban
Transterrestrial Musings:  The Delusion Continues, DEI And NASA, The Augean Stables On The Potomac, News You Can Use, and Case Closed
Victory Girls: Anglo-Saxons Aren’t Real, Salon: The Eighteen States Of America, and Fox News “Cease and Desist” To Tucker
Volokh Conspiracy: Against the “Banana Republic” Critique of Indicting Trump, also, Donald Trump’s Breach of Confidentiality Agreement Lawsuit Against Niece Mary Trump Can Go Forward
Watts Up With That: Mexico and South America Must Tap Fossil Fuels to Fight Poverty, Wrong, Washington Post, Climate Change Is Not Driving ‘Arizona’s Water Troubles’ and The Push for Regulating Banks: An Alarm Bell for the Advent of Eco-Fascism?
Weasel Zippers: California Bill Would Charge Any Parent Who Doesn’t Affirm Child’s Transgenderism With “Child Abuse”, Report: Joe, Hunter Each Got $5 Million From Energy Executive, and Biden Gets Confused Again After Finishing Speech
The Federalist: The Drama At CNN Shows The Impossibility Of Fixing The Media, Ted Kaczynski’s Murderous Legacy Doesn’t Mean His Diagnosis Of The Post-Industrial West Is Wrong, You Don’t Have To Be A Tradwife To Fight In The Culture War, The U.K. Just Banned Chemical Castration For Kids. America Should Do The Same And More, and Extremist Left Claims Only Nazis Want To Teach Children Grammar And Patriotism
Mark Steyn: Racing is Life: Steve McQueen and His Mighty Flop, Le Mans, Tal Bachman: Two Centuries of Rugby, Part V, and The Girl from Ipanema

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Category: Linkagery

Rule 5 Sunday: Frank Kelly Freas

Posted on | June 12, 2023 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Frank Kelly Freas

— compiled by Wombat-socho

One of the great science fiction artists of the late 20th century was Frank Kelly Freas, who usually went by Kelly. and whose artistic talent was matched by being just a really neat and friendly guy. I was blessed by being able to hang around with him at various DC-area SF conventions in the late 1970s and early 1980s; he was always willing to talk about his work, other artists and their work, and to sing the old songs. He’s probably a lot better known for doing the cover to Queen’s News Of The World than any of his SF work. His death in 2005 was a great loss. There were several great illustrations of curvaceous babes that I couldn’t find clean copies of**, but this cover for Anne McCaffrey’s “A Womanly Talent” from the January 1969 Analog is a good example of his work.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Urban Meltdown News, also, the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, MAGA – The Fix Is In, Avatar II, The Idol, Call Me Kate, Astrud Gilberto RIP, “The Girl From Ipanema”, “What Am I Eating?” With Zooey Deschanel, and Blue Cheese

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Tiffany Toth, Fish Pic Friday – Saltwater Jackie, A New Trump Indictment Coming?, Thursday Tanlines, Tucker is Back!, The Wednesday Wetness, Contempt for Christopher Wray?, Tattoo Tuesday, Weekend Leftovers, The Monday Morning Stimulus, and Palm Sunday

FLAPPR: T.I.T.S. for June 9th

* A modification of his cover art for “The Gulf Between” by Tom Godwin, published in the October 1953 Astounding.
**i.e. without the text from the book/magazine cover.

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Road Warriors

Posted on | June 11, 2023 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Road Warriors

— compiled by Wombat-socho

SOTD: Weekend Warriors
A good start to the 1971 season for my Senators! Yes, we dropped two of three to the Royals (were Twins) since Dom Carden is a tough and canny manager, but we came back to sweep Pete’s Brewers (were Pilots) at Milwaukee. Se we’re four and two after the first week, half a game in front of the A’s and Twins, with a series coming up against the Giants on Tuesday.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Fly the Curly W flag!

Death by ‘Mommy Makeover’?
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A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

‘Comprehensive Gun Safety Measures’
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Is the Left Breaking Apart?
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FMJRA 2.0: Das Herz Von Groenland
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Late Night With Rule 5 Sunday: Double-Scoop Swimsuit Edition!
Animal Magnetism
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‘Our Recreational Drug Use Began About a Year Ago … It Increased Recently.’
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In The Mailbox: 06.05.23
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D-Day: ‘The Blessing of Almighty God’
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In The Mailbox: 06.07.23 (Afternoon Edition)
EBL
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What Counts as ‘Hate’?
The DaleyGator
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Cue the ‘Paw Patrol’ Theme Again
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I’ll Take ‘Symptomatic Evidence of Demonic Possession’ for $400, Alex
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BREAKING: Trump Indicted
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In The Mailbox: 06.08.23
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‘Other Unruly Acts’ in Killadelphia
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Right-Wing Trump Supporter Charged in Murder of Black Transgender Woman
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In The Mailbox: 06.09.23
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EBL
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Top linkers for the week ending June 10:

  1.  EBL (17)
  2.  357 Magnum (16)
  3.  A View From The Beach (9)
  4.  The DaleyGator (7)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

No Heroes for You, Whitey: Albany, N.Y., Has ‘Cancelled’ Gen. Philip Schuyler

Posted on | June 11, 2023 | Comments Off on No Heroes for You, Whitey: Albany, N.Y., Has ‘Cancelled’ Gen. Philip Schuyler

Decades have now passed since left-wing activists started a ruckus about the Confederate flag that had long flown over the South Carolina statehouse. It occurred to me at the time that, if the flag couldn’t be flown there — where the South Carolina convention had voted to secede from the Union, thus precipitating the war — then it must eventually be banned everywhere, and once all the Confederate flags were gone, then what? Such movements do not simply stop once their initial demand has been granted; every concession to such radicals will only incite them to make new demands. It’s like Hitler — give him the Sudetenland today, and he’ll take the rest of Czechoslovakia a few months later, then invade Poland next year. Appeasement is never successful when dealing with totalitarian aggressors, and perhaps you don’t wish to think of the advocates of “civil rights” as totalitarians, but do we invoke Godwin’s Law if we notice how, just like Hitler, they can never be appeased?

At any rate, when the quarrel over the flag in South Carolina first started making national headlines, several defenders of Southern heritage prophesied that anyone who imagined that the demands would stop with Confederate symbols was sadly deluded. Those prophecies have been amply vindicated in recent years, especially during the George Floyd BLM/Antifa riots of 2020, which saw the toppling or desecration of statues coast to coast. Christopher Columbus, Abraham Lincoln, Junipero Serra — the iconoclastic mob attacked monuments to all kinds of historic figures who never had anything to do with the Confederacy. And now, they’ve come for Revolutionary War heroes:

The statue of General Philip Schuyler that stood in front of Albany City Hall for nearly a century is gone. The city moved it to storage early Saturday morning—which was about much more than what first meets the eye.
“We’re happy that the statue has finally come down,” said Dr. Alice Green, Executive Director of the Center for Law and Justice. “I don’t know what they’re going to do with it, but at least it’s not in a public space.”
Green has been pushing city leaders to take down the statue for years. She said it was a constant reminder of what General Schuyler did to her ancestors.
“He robbed them of their humanity, their dignity, and their labor,” said Green. “Labor that brought him money.”

We shall get to the matter of Doctor Green and her ancestors momentarily, but first let us address the question: Who was Philip Schuyler and why was he honored in Albany, New York?

Philip John Schuyler was born on November 20, 1733, in Albany, New York, to Cornelia Van Cortlandt (1698–1762) and Johannes (“John”) Schuyler Jr. (1697–1741), the third generation of the Dutch Schuyler family in America. His maternal grandfather was Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the 17th Mayor of New York City. . . .
[I]n 1755 during the French and Indian War, [Schuyler] raised a provincial company, and was commissioned as its captain by his cousin, Lieutenant Governor James Delancey. In 1756, he accompanied British officer Colonel John Bradstreet to Oswego, where he gained experience as a quartermaster, which ended when the outpost fell to the French. Schuyler took part in the battles of Lake George, Oswego River, Carillon and Fort Frontenac. . . .
Schuyler became colonel and commander of a militia district regiment in 1767. In 1768, he served as a member of the New York Assembly.
Schuyler was elected to the Continental Congress in 1775 and served until he was appointed a major general of the Continental Army in June. General Schuyler took command of the Northern Department and planned the Invasion of Quebec. . . .

Schuyler was blamed for the fall of Fort Ticonderoga, but was vindicated by a court martial, and played a key role in the American victory at Saratoga, where British General Burgoyne’s entire army was captured, and thus persuaded France to officially enter the War on the American side. The site of the battle is now called Schuylerville, which ought to convince anyone of how highly esteemed the general and his family were in upstate New York. Speaking of General Schuyler’s family, his kinship to the Van Cortlandt and Delancey families has already been noted, and he married a daughter of the Van Rensselaer family, who were arguably the most prominent of the Old Dutch settlers of New York. His wife was also a cousin of the Livingstons of New Jersey, so that the couple’s numerous children were connected to some of the most illustrious families in the American colonies. Their second-oldest daughter, Elizabeth Schuyler, married a young military officer.

You may have heard of him, or seen his picture on a $10 bill.

Despite his subsequent accomplishments, in his wedding to Philip Schuyler’s daughter, Alexander Hamilton very much married up, considering the prominence of both sides of her family. As further proof of how highly Philip Schuyler was esteemed:

He was a member of the New York State Senate from 1780 to 1784, and at the same time New York State Surveyor General from 1781 to 1784. Afterwards he returned to the State Senate from 1786 to 1790, where he actively supported the adoption of the United States Constitution.
In 1789, he was elected a U.S. Senator from New York to the First United States Congress, serving from July 27, 1789, to March 3, 1791. After losing his bid for re-election in 1791 to Aaron Burr, he returned to the State Senate from 1792 to 1797. In 1797, he was selected again to the U.S. Senate and served in the 5th United States Congress from March 4, 1797, until his resignation because of ill health on January 3, 1798.

This was why the citizens of Albany were once proud to erect a public statue honoring their native son, and as for how and why it was decided to dishonor Schuyler, well, the 1790 Census found 21,193 slaves in the state of New York, of which 3,722 were in Albany County, “the most of any county in the state at the time.” The Dutch patroons who settled the Hudson River valley were substantially reliant on slave labor and, the 1790 census showed, Philip Schuyler “owned 13 slaves at his South End mansion in 1790 and another four slaves worked on his farm in Saratoga County.” To which any sensible person might respond, “And . . . ?”

In historical context, there is nothing remarkable or controversial about Schuyler’s status as a slaveowner. If one studies slavery from a global and historical perspective, the idea of a transtemporal collective grievance — an idea Thomas Sowell addresses in The Quest for Cosmic Justice — is simply absurd. To carry around permanent grudges over the practices of antiquity is a foolish posture. Believing ourselves to be the beneficiaries of progress, ought we not rather be grateful for that progress than to spend our time endlessly rehearsing a vengeful script about how oppressed our ancestors might have been? What possible benefit do black people in Albany, New York, derive from dishonoring Philip Schuyler? How does removing his statue make their lives better? And what did General Schuyler have to do with George Floyd’s death?

There were riots in Albany in the summer of 2020, and the city’s liberal mayor decided now was the time for an empty and futile gesture:

Mayor Kathy Sheehan has ordered city workers to remove the statue honoring Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler from in front of City Hall. . . .
“Scores of community members have reached out to my office requesting the removal of the statue of former slave owner Gen. Philip Schuyler and I thank those residents for making their voices heard,” she said in a statement.
The statue will not come down immediately. Sheehan’s executive order directs the Department of General Services to take steps to remove the statue as soon as possible, including an engineering study to determine the statue’s structural integrity. The statue will not be destroyed, instead it will go toward a museum or other institution, according to a news release.
City Auditor Dorcey Applyrs said the statue’s removal doesn’t eliminate any institutionalized racism but it a symbolic acknowledgement by the city that slavery was wrong.
‘The removal of this statue also acknowledges the horrific and negative implications of slavery and its impact on the lives of black Americans in the city of Albany every day,” she said.

The one thing missing from this? Logic. How is it that the death of George Floyd (in Minnesota, where slavery was never legal) should cause riots in Albany, New York, thus requiring removal of the statue of a Revolutionary War general who has been dead more than 200 years? Whence the need for “symbolic acknowledgement” of the “horrific . . . implications of slavery” in upstate New York? One might wonder why “scores of community members” would have “reached out” to the mayor, but their motive is irrelevant to the real question, i.e., exactly how do these “community members” benefit from the statue’s removal? The rhetoric about slavery’s “impact on the lives of black Americans in the city of Albany every day” seems to imply some logical connection between the statue and the aforesaid “impact,” but I’ll be darned if I can figure out what that connection might be. Imagine yourself presented with a choice: Would you like a nice cold beer? Or would you instead prefer “symbolic acknowledgement” of some injustice that your remote ancestors may have experienced 200 years ago? Give me that cold beer, pal.

What seems to be going on in this kind of “social justice” transaction — the unspoken implication of the “symbolic acknowledgement” — is that (a) the condition of black people in 21st-century America is presumed to be one of misery and hardship, which (b) is so deep and pervasive as to require a Grand Unifying Theory of Oppression to explain it, and therefore (c) The Horrific Implications of Slavery are summoned forth as the ultimate cause of black misery, and thus (d) tear down that statue!

One might write 10,000 words explaining what’s wrong with this line of thought, but why bother? It’s not about logic, it’s about feelings — irrational sentiments which are immune to argument. And now, as promised earlier, we return to Doctor Green who, since the mid-1980s, has been working her social-justice hustle through the tax-exempt nonprofit Center for Law and Justice.

Doctor Green has “several degrees from SUNY Albany . . . [which] include a bachelor’s in African-American studies, master’s degrees in education, social welfare and criminal justice, and a doctorate in criminal justice.” According to WTEN-TV, Doctor Green viewed the statue at City Hall as “a constant reminder of what General Schuyler did to her ancestors.”

Except he had nothing to do with her ancestors. Doctor Green was born in South Carolina. Her family later moved to upstate New York. So whoever enslaved Doctor Green’s ancestors, it wasn’t General Schuyler.

Facts, logic — these are the weapons of white supremacy! Whereas social justice relies on “symbolic acknowledgement,” but speaking for myself, I’d still rather have a cold beer. Perhaps you feel the same.



 

 

Category: History, New York, Racism
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