FMJRA 2.0: It’s No Game

Supporters of the Islamic State have taken to Twitter to mock claims the terrorist organisation is luring women into its fold using kittens and Nutella.
The original claim was made by CNN’s Newsroom anchor Carol Costello on Wednesday during a piece on how ISIS twists and manipulates its image to present living in the vast swathes of Syria and Iraq currently under the group’s control as being a pleasant experience.
The accusation was that women are falling for ISIS’ use of images and videos of cute cats to make the Sunni extremists appear less intimidating, and have been duped into thinking life under the terror is similar to the West thanks to references to eating Nutella in emoji-strewn Twitter posts.

The exact quote:

“ISIS is talking online about jars of Nutella, pictures of kittens and emojis. These three images are, in part, helping ISIS recruiters lure Westerners into their fight because they want people to believe their life on the battlefield isn’t so different than yours.”

EXCLUSIVE @CNN @CarolCNN reports ISIS has obtained weapons of mass destruction. pic.twitter.com/s7y99RbHDJ

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) February 21, 2015

Via Memeorandum.

Category: CNN, Terrorism

Maximum Acronym

Posted on | February 21, 2015 | 84 Comments

After years of struggle, the Rainbow Alphabet — LGBT — has been extended to maximum inclusivity at Wesleyan University:

Open House is a safe space for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderf–k, Polyamourous, Bondage/Disciple, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism (LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM) communities and for people of sexually or gender dissident communities. The goals of Open House include generating interest in a celebration of queer life from the social to the political to the academic. Open House works to create a Wesleyan community that appreciates the variety and vivacity of gender, sex and sexuality.

(Hat-tip: Ryan Anderson on Twitter.) Thus do we continue the descent down the slippery slope that William F. Buckley Jr. first noted in 1951’s God and Man at Yale. In case anyone has forgotten, Buckley’s main point was that Yale had been founded as an explicitly Christian institution and yet, by the middle of the 20th century, harbored many faculty who expounded explicitly anti-Christian doctrines. This lapse into religious heterodoxy, Buckley noted, was accompanied by a tendency to accept or promote philosophical collectivism and hostility toward capitalism. Here we are now, six decades later and Wesleyan University (deriving its name from a famous Christian evangelist) is promoting the very utmost in sexual perversity in all its “variety and vivacity.”

Annual tuition at Wesleyan is $47,972, which is certainly more than the rent of a cheap apartment in San Francisco’s Castro district, where a similar education in LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM might be gained.

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Category: Education, Gays

Sexual Disorientation, Part II

Posted on | February 21, 2015 | 67 Comments

Caitlin Stasey, second from right, as a child star in ‘The Sleepover Club’

Caitlin Stasey (@caitlinstasey) is a former child star who has gotten widespread attention for her feminist website Herself.com.

In her own profile at the site, Ms. Stasey described having “vivid dreams about other women” as an adolescent, “masturbating in secret,” saying she has “known I was mostly gay ever since I can remember” and calls herself a lesbian, even though she currently has “a male partner,” another former child star named Lucas Neff.

Given the high-profile problems of so many former child performers — including Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes — it is certainly reasonable to wonder if these psychiatric disorders are actually caused by such abnormal childhood experiences of “growing up in the spotlight.” On the other hand, it might just be that we notice these meltdowns more than we do the struggles of other young people. If I had been a teenage celebrity? The tabloids would have had a field day with my adolescent “struggles” (although I don’t think diving headfirst into trouble could be considered “struggling”). A couple of weeks ago, I addressed the problems Ms. Stasey described:

Growing up in a sex-obsessed society seems to be a profoundly frightening experience for many girls nowadays. The decline of marriage and the destruction of moral norms are part of a cultural syndrome that produces what I have called “a sort of social epidemic of bipolar hysteria, in which minds unmoored from cultural tradition constantly shift between utter confusion and radical certainty.”

In terms of documenting this cultural syndrome, Ms. Casey’s website has continued (however accidentally) to do interesting work. Her declared purpose is to advance a feminist agenda, but if you have any knowledge of psychology, it’s just as easy to see feminism as part of the problem described by the women profiled at Herself.com. Here are quotes from two recent interviews at the site:

“I started masturbating at quite a young age but never really understood what was going on . . . Having issues with mental health, I’ve very much struggled with the importance of emotions and feelings. Having Borderline Personality Disorder often equates you with being ‘bad’ in the eyes of health professionals, and it is most commonly diagnosed in women, so understanding that my feelings are valid is a bit of a challenge. . . . Being sexually fluid and more interested in girls, I didn’t learn anything at all about that, and am still figuring it out.”
— LJ, Australia

“I suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder with Major Depression, suicidality, self harm and a fairly antisocial outlook. . . . My mother caught me masturbating when I was around seven years old . . . but I knew that I wasn’t going to stop, just be more clever about where and when I’d do it! . . . Sex used to literally run my life. I was insatiable, constantly seeking the ultimate in sexual experiences. Much of it was very cerebral in nature, involving role play and complex set ups with bondage and corporal punishment.”
— Laura, Canada

What are the odds that, of the first 12 women interviewed by Herself.com, two would be diagnosed with the same mental illness, and that both of them would describe early experiences with masturbation as formative in the development of their sexuality? Is this coincidental or has Caitlin Stasey accidentally stumbled onto a pattern, a psychological syndrome, which might be worth studying from a mental health perspective, if only we could get feminists to stop hectoring us with ideological rants about how women are being victimized by heteronormative patriarchy?

“The personal is political,” feminists have been telling us for decades, but politics is a poor substitute for psychiatric therapy.

Dear Crazy People: You have a right to be crazy. You do not have a right to force the rest of us to pretend that you're sane.

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) February 19, 2015

UPDATE: Really, you need to read this interview with Caitlin Stasey:

In high school, when boys started to sleep with other girls, these girls’ burgeoning sexuality wasn’t an exciting thing to be explored. It was a shameful secret you lie to people about because people would make fun of you. They would verbally abuse you for it. The men you chose to share this thing with would tell all of their friends and then their friends would treat you like sh*t. It became a really toxic environment and I just didn’t like the way it was heading. I wish I’d had the tools by then to equip myself against those insults and arguments. I didn’t know what to do. It just really hurt.
So I became a feminist, really, out of a desire to not feel sh*tty about myself. Also because I’ve been sexually attracted to women for as long as I’ve known. Growing up in a Catholic education system and going to an all-girls Catholic school at one point, I felt like I was sick. Like there was something wrong with me. None of the girls in my circle reflected that back to me. It was always like, if someone came out as a lesbian, they became the object of ridicule. I hated it. . . .
I had no point of reference… nothing I was watching looked like anything I recognized within myself. There were never any young women or young boys falling in love with each other or anything other than heteronormative relationships, really.

You can read the whole thing, but what I see is a young woman who grew up extremely self-conscious, fearful of men and normal sexuality, trapped by feelings of shame about her female body. These are very common problems you see manifested in the rhetoric of feminists, but the problems they describe are not actually political. You can’t organize a political movement based on “Boys Were Mean to Me in High School” and expect to be taken seriously. Yet this is what feminists have done, and Ms. Stasey’s effort to stigmatize normal sexuality — because she was oppressed by the depiction of “heternormative relationships” in media — is exactly what you would expect when crazy people obtain an ideological platform from which to dictate their own agenda to the rest of us.

UPDATE II: Some things are predictable.

Finally, @sallykohn presents the Real Feminist Agenda™ http://t.co/a9tknkXtrE @GraceGabriel51 Thanks, Sally! #tcot

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) February 21, 2015

Anyone could have predicted this endgame as early as 1970.

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

Ivy League Lynch Mobs

Posted on | February 20, 2015 | 66 Comments

The “rape culture” hysteria hyped by feminist fanatics keeps producing new atrocities at elite universities. I was frankly shocked when I learned the truth about Emma Sulkowicz’s vendetta against Paul Nungesser at Columbia. She accused him of rape six months after their last hook-up, without a scintilla of evidence, and when the university refused to expel Nungesser on her mere say-so, Sulkowicz then turned her accusation into a protest for which she received class credit.

This is part of a climate of fear fostered by feminists who have deliberately exaggerated the frequency of rape on campus using statistics derived from surveys of dubious methodology which, if taken at face value, would lead us to believe that male college students are more likely to commit rape than are other men. In other words, feminists are suggesting that the “best and brightest” males at elite schools are more dangerous than any common street thug.

Under pressure from the federal Department of Education, schools are moving to abolish due-process protections for accused students. The University of Pennsylvania’s new policy is under fire:

Law professors at the University of Pennsylvania are not happy about the university’s new sexual assault policies, which they say undermine due process.
Nearly one-third (16 out of 49 tenure or tenure-track professors) signed a letter to school administrators denouncing the new policy, which institutionalizes the low “preponderance of evidence” standard for sexual assault allegations and disallows cross-examination of the accuser.
“Due process of law is not window dressing; it is the distillation of centuries of experience, and we ignore the lessons of history at our own peril,” the faculty members wrote. “All too often, outrage at heinous crimes becomes a justification for shortcuts in our adjudicatory processes. These actions are unwise and contradict our principles.” . .
The new UPenn policy, unlike many universities across the country, does allow students to obtain legal counsel, although the lawyers cannot speak on their client’s behalf. The policy also prohibits cross-examination of accusers and their witnesses, one of the biggest biases against accused students.
The professors argue that threats from the federal government to curb funding if schools don’t adequately punish accused students provides quite an incentive for hearing panels to find students guilty. Recent findings from the Department of Education show an administration more concerned with looking tough on sexual assault than a fair hearing.
“Sexual assault is indeed an important problem, but the federal government has dictated a set of policies and twisted universities’ arms into compromising some of the safeguards that we teach our students are essential to fairness,” UPenn professor Stephanos Bibas, who signed the letter, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “There is a tremendous amount of money on the line. It is understandable that universities feel pressure to comply.”

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) Will freshman orientation now include a Miranda warning? It should. The Sulkowicz Scenario — a vindictive ex-girlfriend making a rape accusation without evidence — is a nightmare that is likely to become more common before the current witch-hunt subsides. Accused students should remember they have the right to remain silent. Don’t try to talk your way out of it. Admit nothing. Deny nothing. Make no statement of any kind. Lawyer up immediately: “I have the right to have my attorney present during questioning.” And once you’ve vindicated yourself, sue the hell out of the university for violating your civil rights with their Stalinist “show trial” disciplinary procedures.

Category: Crime, Education, Feminism, Sex

‘Talent Search’ at MSNBC

Posted on | February 20, 2015 | 77 Comments

Two afternoon shows on MSNBC — Joy Reid at 1 p.m. ET and Ronan Farrow at 2 p.m. — were cancelled yesterday, and it looks like Chris Hayes will be the network’s next “star” to get the ax:

In the relatively near term, two well-placed sources predicted to The Daily Beast, Chris Hayes will be relieved of his weak-performing 8 p.m. show All In, to be replaced by the current 9 p.m. host of The Rachel Maddow Show, while a talent search is underway to fill the prime-time slot to be vacated by Maddow.

That phrase “talent search” stuck out, like MSNBC president Phil Griffin is running a cable-news American Idol, with would-be anchors auditioning for their place in the lineup. In other words, Griffin seems to have the idea that on-air “talent” is the basic problem at his network, rather than the deliberate narrowness of its niche marketing strategy. If you’re a politics junkie who wants to see 24/7 TV coverage produced from the left-wing perspective of Daily Kos/Mother Jones/Talking Points Memo, then MSNBC is your network, regardless of the talking-head “talent” in front of the cameras. Unfortunately for Phil Griffin, that audience seems to max out at less than 800,000 (Rachel Maddow’s audience Wednesday was 774,000) and most of those viewers only watch a couple hours of programming daily.

No “talent search” can ever overcome that basic problem. Maybe you could bring back Keith Olbermann, but that’s it.

Category: MSNBC

In The Mailbox, 02.19.15

Posted on | February 19, 2015 | 13 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Apologies for the lack of posts lately; I thought I was feeling better, but I thought wrong.
Also, the widget that schedules posts is still upgefickt, so no Live at Five posts until that gets unwedged.
Also also, no CPAC for me this year; the ACU turned down my request for media credentials. Welp.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Biden’s Big Fat Creepy Tuesday
Louder With Crowder: Students Condemn Free Speech/First Amendment (Video)
First Street Journal: In Praise Of #MarieHarf
Michelle Malkin: The “Jobs For Jihad Delinquent” Program
Twitchy: Matthew Yglesias’ Voxplanation Of Long-Term Unemployment Is About As Dumb As You’d Expect
Monster Hunter Nation: BOOK BOMB! Novellas From The Sad Puppies Slate
Reaxxion: Gamers Are Now Engaged In Fourth-Generation Warfare

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: A Bloody Retreat From Debaltseve As Ukrainian Forces Withdraw
American Thinker: The Walker-Stupid, Obama-Genius Myth
BLACKFIVE: Ted Cruz Rocks The Defeat Jihad Summit
Conservatives4Palin: The Brute Force Left
Don Surber: Hey, Republicans – Take The Blame And Take The White House
Jammie Wearing Fools: Imam Obama Defends “The True Peaceful Nature Of Islam”
Joe For America: Blacks Should Stop Looking For A Handout And Blaming “Racism” Says…Karl Malone
JustOneMinute: More “Random” Killings, Now In Copenhagen
Pamela Geller: Faked Hate – Another Hate Crime That Isn’t
Protein Wisdom: “Sue And Settle” – Green Fascism’s Favorite Kabuki Theater Tactic
Shot In The Dark: Of Hats And Clowns
STUMP: Weekend Book – A Dickensian Curiosity
The Gateway Pundit: ISIS Burns 45 Iraqis Alive In A Cage At Al-Baghdadi
The Jawa Report: Egypt, Jordan Ask For ISIS Targets – Obama Administration Refuses To Help
The Lonely Conservative: Now Democrats Want Relief From Obamacare Penalties They Created
This Ain’t Hell: NBC On Stolen Valor
Weasel Zippers: Boko Haram Leader Vows To “Enslave” Obama Supporters
Megan McArdle: A Few More Arguments Against Obamacare
Mark Steyn: Through The Bottom Of A Glass, Darkly

Shop Amazon – Textbook Trade-In – Get Up to 80% Back

Category: Linkagery

But It’s Not About Hate

Posted on | February 19, 2015 | 84 Comments

“If you want to see the consequences of deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill,” I explained a couple weeks ago, “go to Tumblr.com and search for ‘feminism.'” Exactly why Tumblr is such a fetid swamp of virulent ideological insanity, I’m not sure, but in November 2014, Elliot (a “third generation asian american (japanese). polyamorous and panromantic” college student in Boston) wrote this:

“hands up if middle aged white men scare you more than anyone else”

Explanation? Who needs explanations for this kind of fear in 2015? Young people have been “carefully taught” (to borrow, with no deliberate irony, the words of an old Rodgers and Hammerstein song) whom they should fear, and no factual justification is needed. Elliot’s denunciation was reblogged on Tumblr by “Social Work Grad Students” who added:

Second place goes to early twenties white men

Then Klaudia weighed in:

let’s be real, teenage white boys in groups are the most terrifying, with the runner up being violently drunk college frat boys

Finally, Ashleigh in Sydney, Australia, added:

all of the above

Really? Do any of them bother to explain this reign of terror imposed by white males? No, they merely parrot what they have been taught — white males are agents of universal oppression — with the expectation that everyone will nod in enthusiastic agreement. And more than 200,000 Tumblr contributors have liked or reblogged Elliot’s words.

You can dismiss such hateful rhetoric as “just a bunch of idiots on the Internet,” but in the 1930s, some dismissed Mein Kampf as “just a book by a disgruntled Austrian painter.”

Category: Culture, Education, Feminism, Racism

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FMJRA 2.0: It’s No Game

Hey, Remember When CNN Was ‘The Most Trusted Name in News’?

Maximum Acronym

Sexual Disorientation, Part II

Ivy League Lynch Mobs

‘Talent Search’ at MSNBC

In The Mailbox, 02.19.15

But It’s Not About Hate

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