The Other McCain

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

The World’s Youngest Blogger Is Confused By Lefty Idiocy And Tensor Calculus, But Mostly Lefty Idiocy

Posted on | December 5, 2015 | 10 Comments

Category: World's Youngest Blogger

In The Mailbox: 12.04.15

Posted on | December 4, 2015 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.04.15

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: San Bernardino – What Do You Think?
The Political Hat: Move Over, Rotherham, Here’s The Next Child Sex Slave Loving English City Council
Louder With Crowder: Real-Time Detroit Ride-Along
American Irony: What A Holiday Card From Abortionists Should Look Like
Doug Powers: Fourteen Killed In San Bernardino, And The NY Daily News Slams GOP For Offering Prayers
Twitchy: Attention NYDN – Berdoo Terrorist Reportedly Pledged Allegiance To ISIS, Not The NRA
Liberty’s Torch: The Heart Of The Matter
Monster Hunter Nation: Guns And Vultures


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Yahoo’s Marissa Meyer Has Run Out Of Time For A Turnaround
American Thinker: San Bernardino Shooting – Political Correctness Kills
BLACKFIVE: Book Review – What You See By Hank Philippi Ryan
Conservatives4Palin: The Irony Of Planned Parenthood Condemning Murder
Don Surber: Not A Good Day To Be Chuck Todd
Jammie Wearing Fools: Terrorist Farook Had “Very Liberal” Political View
Joe For America: Obama Says Full Speed Ahead For Resettlement Of Syrian Refugees Near San Bernardino
JustOneMinute: A Chess Player On The Left?
Pamela Geller: AG Loretta Lynch – “Actions Predicated On Violent Talk” Toward Muslims “Will Be Prosecuted”
Protein Wisdom: Did Hateful “Christmas Party” Rhetoric Trigger #SanBernardinoShooting?
Shot In The Dark: Enough Is Enough
STUMP: Save The Humanities – Don’t Let People Get Cheap Credit!
The Gateway Pundit: NY Daily News Doubles Down – After Attacking Christians, They Equate NRA Chief With Islamic Terrorists
The Jawa Report: San Bernardino Shooting Motive May Be Linked To “Peaceful Islam”
The Lonely Conservative: Obama’s ISIS Czar Is A Terrorist Sympathizer
This Ain’t Hell: Veterans Prevail In Bladensburg Memorial Case
Weasel Zippers: 94 Million Americans Not In Workforce
Mark Steyn: If You See Something…


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Category: Linkagery

Friday Fiction Verse: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | December 4, 2015 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

Can the darkness devour the light?
And can falsehood vanquish truth?
And does forgiveness mean no fight,
To preserve our liberty for the youth?

From what source does leadership spring,
Direction to give, resolve to share,
At last tangible peace to bring,
And clear corrupted Commmie air?

For once upon a time a fool,
Hoodwinked the land, assuming power,
Or was this a diabolical tool?
What difference makes it at this hour?

If we don’t learn from the past,
And set about the right to do,
Electing REAL leadership at last,
Then the joke’s on me an you.

via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

Our Son Made It Through

Posted on | December 3, 2015 | 40 Comments

 

My wife got the call Sunday from Camp Rudder: “Hooah!” Regular readers know about our son’s service (see “A Soldier and Two Marines: Sworn to ‘Support and Defend the Constitution’” and “He Gets His Wings Tonight”). We have spent the past months praying for him to make it through one of the most difficult military training programs in the world. Camp Rogers, Camp Darby, Camp Merrill, Camp Rudder — extreme physical and psychological stress are involved, and he made it.

So our family is making a road trip and, given the current state of national alert, readers can understand why considerations of operational security limit me from saying much more about the timing and destination of our journey, but we’re gonna see him get that tab. We prayed very hard for our son to make it through this grueling ordeal, and our prayers have been answered. So I’m rattling tip jar for the Shoe Leather Fund to put me on the road again. Thanks in advance.




 

Category: Family, Military

Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, Named in #SanBernardino Massacre

Posted on | December 3, 2015 | 79 Comments

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The suspects in the shooting rampage were a married couple who had just dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with a grandmother, family representatives said.
Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, were married two years ago, according to Malik’s brother, Farhan Khan . . .
On Wednesday morning, Farook and his wife dropped their daughter off with Farook’s mother in Redlands, saying they had a doctor’s appointment, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles office.
The grandmother grew worried when she heard of the shooting attack in San Bernardino, and “she started calling. No answer,” Ayloush said.
The family was worried the couple were shot in the attacks, but then they started receiving calls from media outlets indicating Farook was a person of interest.
Farook was born in Illinois, and his parents immigrated to the U.S. from Southeast Asia, Ayloush said.

UPDATE: More from the Los Angeles Times:

As the holiday gathering got underway Wednesday morning, Syed Rizwan Farook joined dozens of his colleagues from San Bernardino County’s public health department. Farook, an inspector, seemed quiet during the early hours of the event, then vanished just as a group photo was about to be taken.
Shortly afterward, gunfire erupted at the Inland Regional Center where the employees filled a conference room. By the end of the day, police had identified Farook, 28, as a suspect in the massacre and said he was one of two people shot to death in a gun battle with officers. The other was 27-year-old Tashfeen Malik, who a family member said was Farook’s wife. . . .
Co-workers told The Times they were shocked to hear Farook’s name linked to the shooting. . . .
They said Farook recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife he had met online. The couple had a baby and appeared to be “living the American dream,” said Patrick Baccari, a fellow health inspector who shared a cubicle with Farook.
Baccari and Christian Nwadike said Farook, who worked with them for several years, rarely started a conversation. But the tall, thin young man with a full beard was well liked and spent much of his time out in the field.
They and other colleagues said Farook was a devout Muslim, but rarely discussed religion at work.
“He never struck me as a fanatic, he never struck me as suspicious,” said Griselda Reisinger, who worked with Farook before leaving the agency in May.

(Via Memeorandum.) The talking heads on TV are asking, “Was this terrorism?” As if the word “terrorism” requires an official designation to fit the definition. Given the apparently meticulous planning that went into this attack, and considering that it was committed by devout Muslims, all we need is common sense to say that this was Islamic terrorism. Is there any indication it was anything else?

UPDATE II: Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit reports:

San Bernardino police announced [Wednesday night] that the Islamic killers who slaughtered 14 people at a community social services building were wearing GoPro cameras.
The male and female were wearing protective vests and carrying several firearms when they were gunned down by police after the massacre. . . .
Local officials reported the name of the female suspect in San Bernardino shooting as – Tashfeen Malik.
They were wearing GoPro cameras when they were killed. The couple were at home when officers arrived and then took off and were followed by police when they were shot dead. . . .
Several jihadists in Europe have worn cameras during their bloody attacks in the past year.

UPDATE III: While it appears the attack in San Bernardino had a religious motive, other attacks had a political motive:

Left Spends Day In Coordinated Attack on
Saying “Thoughts and Prayers” For the Victims

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) So, while Islam is at war with America, the Democrat Party is at war with Christianity.

 

Category: Crime, Islam, Terrorism

The #SanBernardino Massacre

Posted on | December 2, 2015 | 37 Comments

Everybody’s been watching this story develop live on TV:

At least 14 people were dead and another 17 injured in a shooting Wednesday in San Bernardino, California, when multiple gunmen who were heavily armed and “on a mission” opened fire during a function at a center for people with developmental disabilities, police said.
Up to three shooters opened fire around 11 a.m. at the Inland Regional Center, armed with long guns and “came prepared to do what they did as if they were on a mission,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said.
The shooting lasted for just “a few minutes” before the suspects, who remained on the loose, may have fled the scene in what Burguan described as a “dark color SUV.” Police have no identification information about the suspects and have not identified a motive.

It is being reported that police killed two of the suspects and that a third suspect escaped on foot, but everything else is sketchy. The motive is the big mystery at this point.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times reports:

The shooters, who carried long guns and wore masks and camouflage clothing, opened fire on a holiday party being held by county employees, federal law enforcement sources and a witness told the Los Angeles Times.
An altercation between people attending the gathering may have sparked the assault. A federal law enforcement source said that one of the shooters may have left the party after getting into an argument and returned with one or two armed companions.
The shooting took place in a large conference room on the grounds of the Inland Regional Center, which serves people with developmental disabilities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

UPDATE II: Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik Named in #SanBernardino Shooting

 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 12.02.15

Posted on | December 2, 2015 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: The Mile High Loser Club
Da Tech Guy: Grifters Know College Endowments Are Where The Money Is
First Street Journal: There’s Something Wrong With This News Story!
The Camp of the Saints: The Left And The Mentally Ill – A Band Of Lunatic Brothers
The Political Hat: A Feminist Epistemology Of Mathematics
Michelle Malkin: Deadly DC – The Land Of No Consequences
Twitchy: Martin O’Malley Already Blaming San Bernardino Shooting On The NRA


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: ISIS Prevents Civilians From Fleeing Ramadi
American Thinker: Israel Beware
BLACKFIVE: Book Review – Cheney One By James Rosen
Conservatives4Palin: Governor Palin Reflects On Her “Toughest Year So Far”
Don Surber: Cutting A Deal With Democrats Costs A Company $500 Million
Jammie Wearing Fools: Democrat Warns Obama’s Incompetence Could Drag Us Into “Devastating Nuclear War”
Joe For America: Law Enforcement Advises To Arm Yourself Against Incoming Religion Of Peace “Refugees”
JustOneMinute: Contrasting Headlines
Pamela Geller: Portland Christmas Tree Bombing Plot By American Muslim Could Have Killed 25,000
Protein Wisdom: Two Weeks After 130 Die In Paris Attack, Obama Proclaims Mass Shootings Only Happen In America
Shot In The Dark: Does Anyone Remember…
The Gateway Pundit: Judge Allows Student Back On Campus After He Threatened To Murder 16 Whites
The Jawa Report: Sandcrawler PSA – Welcome To Bumf**k Egypt
The Lonely Conservative: The Latest On Hillary’s Document Dump
This Ain’t Hell: LGEN Flynn – ISIS Was Ignored Because Of Election Year Narrative
Weasel Zippers: DEVELOPING – Twelve Dead In San Bernardino Shooting – Suspect Named Farooq Saeed
Megan McArdle: “Ban Smoking” Means “Evict Defiant Smokers”
Mark Steyn: The Offset Jet Set


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Category: Linkagery

Dear @Clementine_Ford …

Posted on | December 2, 2015 | 69 Comments

 

Let’s play a game, you and me. Call it, “Yours and Mine.”

You are in Australia (yours) and I am in America (mine).

You are female (yours) and I am male (mine).

You are a “progressive” (yours) and I am conservative (mine).

It would be a simple gambit, as an opening move in Yours and Mine, for me to say that Australia’s progressive women are all idiots, sluts, dykes, fat, ugly, etc. In response, your move would be to say that American conservative men are all racist, sexist, homophobic theocrats, etc. Let’s skip that, eh? I stipulate, arguendo, that you can out-hate me, and that you excel in accusing anyone who disagrees with you of mala fides. Never has anyone directly criticized Clementine Ford who was not presumed guilty of “misogyny” or some other such Thought Crime.

This mode of discourse — whereby feminists seek to discredit and thus effectively silence all opposition by encouraging the belief that anyone who opposes feminist ideology is not merely wrong, but also evil — is rhetorically dishonest. It is a propaganda tactic, a method of sophistry, and if schools still taught basic logic and rhetoric, I daresay you would be the target of much more effective and devastating criticism than having Michale Nolan call you a “slut”:

A SYDNEY man as been fired from his job as a hotel manager after calling popular feminist writer and commentator Clementine Ford a ‘sl**’ on Facebook.
On Friday, Ms Ford shared a screenshot of her interaction with Michael Nolan with her 80,000 Facebook followers and tagged Mr Nolan’s employer Meriton Apartments in the post.
“I wonder if the folks over at Meriton Apartments are aware that a man listing himself as a supervisor for their business likes to leave comments on women’s Facebook pages calling them sl**s. I wonder if they are also aware that he is a racist,” she wrote. Mr Nolan has posted several racist jokes and memes on his personal Facebook page.
In a statement to Ms Ford, Meriton Apartments said they do not condone Mr Nolan’s behaviour and he has since been let go from his job.
“Michael Nolan was removed from the Meriton site on Saturday 28th November pending an investigation, and as of 2:30pm today 30th November 2015, he no longer works for the Meriton Group,” the statement read. . . .
Ms Ford says she hopes speaking out against online misogyny will reduce the chance of other women receiving abuse online.
“These men don’t get to just go around leaving these kinds of comments and attempting to degrade women just for the hell of it,” she wrote on Facbook last week.
“Why should they get away with it? Why should there be no consequences at all for them? Why should I put up with that?
“There are basically no consequences for men who behave like this, so we have to start making consequences for them.” . . .

Well, you have now defended yourself at some length, but can you answer this: How is the identity-politics mentality of feminism not merely a species of special pleading? Many years ago, to amuse myself, I had fun with idiots on Usenet groups who supposed that a Civil War history forum was a suitable place to impugn the Sacred Honor of Our Fallen Heroes. To choose one side of an argument, and then to unload upon one’s antagonist all the rhetorical ammunition at hand, is a fine sport. Pompously serious fellows like Mark Pitcavage, Ph.D., did not enjoy the way I played the game, but it is not my purpose here to refight those arguments, Ms. Ford. Rather, I recount that ancient Usenet quarrel to explain to you that special pleading in the War of Ideas — arguing vociferously on behalf of one’s own particular tribe — is a phenomenon quite familiar to me. And the problem of our age is this: Certain special pleaders have succeeded in convincing the intelligentsia that their special pleading is synonymous with social justice.

There in Australia, for example, I suppose that Aboriginal Rights is considered by your intelligentsia to be a Holy Crusade. Considering that I have never visited Australia and know next to nothing about your aborigines, I’m sure I could not be fairly accused of hating them. Maybe the aborigines are all fine upstanding citizens, and maybe progressives like yourself are correct to suspect prejudice lurks in the hearts of those ordinary working-class people in Australia who roll their eyes when the media Down Under begin lecturing them (as I imagine the media is prone to do) about the Tragic Plight of the Oppressed Aborigines. Or perhaps, on other occasions, the eye-rolling of ordinary Australians is in reaction to the latest iteration of another theme, the Aboriginal Success Story: “Look here at this fine fellow who, having overcome poverty and prejudice, now has achieved some wonderful thing.”

Such media exercises are not truly journalism, but rather evangelism. This kind of “reporting” is didactic and tendentious and, despite the supposed ignorance of the ordinary Australian at whom such journalistic sermons are preached, the truck driver in Brisbane who sees these Morality Tales of Aboriginal Oppression recognizes he is being lectured, guilt-tripped by well-educated media types who think they are better than him. These moralistic media preachers, in Australia as everywhere else, presume themselves fit to tell the rest of us what to think.

Whatever the Controversial Issue may be this week — immigration or education, poverty or disease, climate change or sexual harassment — it’s always the same thing. Our Moral Superiors™ feel a constant duty to instruct us in the Correct Attitude, as if we are unruly schoolchildren who need to be told for the umpteenth time How to Play Well With Others.

Damn you. Damn you all, and damn your smug sense of superiority.

This, I think, is what Michael Nolan was attempting to express when he went on Facebook to call you a “slut,” Ms. Ford.

What are the everyday problems of Michael Nolan’s life? I don’t know, any more than I know anything about the plight of the Australian aborigines. At a distance of 10,000 miles from Sydney, I cannot hope to inquire among Mr. Nolan’s family, friends and acquaintances to ascertain his general character and reputation, nor to learn what sort of difficulties and hardships he might be dealing with.

What I do know is this: No one amongst Australia’s intellectual class — a class to which you, Clementine Ford, quite prominently belong — gives a damn about Mr. Nolan or anyone like him. The ordinary Australian, who works all day to pay his or her bills, rates so low in the estimation of elitists like yourself that you cannot even be bothered to notice that such people exist, except in those cases where your sadistic impulses compel you to publicly shame and humiliate some fellow like Mr. Nolan whose existence offends you: “Who is this despicable slob who thinks he can say rude things to us and get away with it?” Feminism is always a lecture and never a dialogue. So it is with any other issue that attracts the enthusiasm of the intellectual elite. Our Moral Superiors™ will tell us what to think, and we are expected to praise them for this.

Damn you, and damn your expectations. Damn you all to Hell.

So, Ms. Ford, this is how we play the game of Yours and Mine. Here on my blog, I accuse you of arrogance and sophistry, and you are free to answer this accusation however and wherever you wish.

But you won’t, will you? No, it is beneath the dignity of Clementine Ford to address such an accusation as this from a lowly peon like me. You will pretend that there is no one on the planet who has seen through your transparent charade of superiority. For to acknowledge me — someone who has spotted your intellectual hustle as the shabby trick it is — would call attention to the general question of your own authority as an Arbiter of Correct Thinking. Who are you, ma’am, to tell us what we are allowed to think? What makes you so much better than the rest of us? Where is the proof of your extraordinary virtue, that qualifies you to stand in the pulpit, to condemn everyone else as sinners, and demand that we accept the Gospel of Progressive Salvation?

Damn you, Clementine Ford, and damn your claim to “journalism.” You are selfish and dishonest and, more importantly, you are a vengeful sadist who craves power to punish and humiliate others.

You are a very bad person — you are wicked, evil, corrupt, consumed by your own depravity — and anyone who admires you is a deluded fool. But though I publish this accusation in hope that the whole world will read it, so that they may condemn you as a cruel bully and a cunning liar, I do not expect any answer from you, because that is not how people like you play the game. No, what you seek to do is to dictate the rules of the game, and to decide who is allowed to play, so that You always win and They always lose, and then you and your buddies gather around to congratulate yourselves on how fabulously clever you are.

Damn you, Clementine Ford, and damn all your friends, too.

Game over. Thanks for playing Yours and Mine.

— Robert Stacy McCain

 

+ + + + +

This is part of my continuing Sex Trouble series on radical feminism, a project funded by readers in response to the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Whatever you give — $5, $10, $20 — is most sincerely appreciated.




 

Category: Intellectuals, Journalism, Media Bias, Sex Trouble
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