The Other McCain

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

Progressivism Won’t Be Our Death

Posted on | July 4, 2014 | 35 Comments

by Smitty

It’s easy, melting in the humidity of the political winter that is the Obama Administration, to take counsel from fears. But that’s really just the inner demons from the Commies burying us in negative vibe, and maybe a FaceBook experiment or two.

Jonah Goldberg was focusing on “Liberals tak[ing] exception to exceptionalism” in a post today at NRO. Read the whole thing, but note this bit, emphasis mine:

Why liberals have become so comfortable running down America is no doubt complicated, but I think one part of the answer is obvious. Liberals tend to equate patriotism with the government. Obama was supposed to usher in a glorious new era of European-style big government. He’s failed, though alas not entirely. But in the attempt he aroused a populist movement — the tea parties — full of people who wore their traditional patriotism on their sleeves and tricorn hats. The forces of American exceptionalism proved formidable, taking advantage of our exceptional constitutional structure to thwart European social democracy.

The flip side of that is that Liberals despise intellectual individualism, that is, dissent. You can slake your lusts in any hedonistic direction, and it will be lauded as ‘edgy’ and ‘hip’. Miley Cyrus is some kind of heroine to a Liberal, for all she’s a sad disappointment from the vantage point of adulthood. Heroin itself is just some ‘epidemic’ that happens, because who can expect individuals to grow up and realize that self-medicating with narcotics is just nihilism, straight up? Individualism it the Liberal is a thing of the flesh, not the mind. And when your need to slake some lusts crosses a legal line, that’s a feature! You’ve just underscored the need for MOAR laws, bureaucrats, hardware, centralization, studies, and news programming.

The equation of patriotism with government is really about fetishing authoritarianism. The Obama Administration would have totally gotten the economy, health care, and foreign policy right if the hoarders and wreckers had just played along, instead of getting all bitter and clingy with “them guns and Bibles”. However, having already arrested all intellectual development at adolescence, the authoritarian urge becomes a self-licking bullwhip. Witness the anti-intellectual meltdown over Hobby Lobby. Rage is generated, then flung at the closely held corporation, one of the last bastions of less-than-total government control. As long as the savages can get their rut on, the sad truth that they’ve been lowered to something akin to a pack of hounds and bitches is an apparently fair trade.

How does this reaction sustain itself? How long can the Left continue to burn the character of people for political fun and profit? With #OccupyResoluteDesk seeming to cash out on Democrats retaining any control in Congress after November, one is encouraged to pray to an actual, non-governmental God that real wisdom will descend upon the people in general, and the leaders in particular. Time to butcher this golden calf of authoritarian Progress.

Category: Democrats, Progressivism

Sex, Science, Nature and ‘Choice’

Posted on | July 3, 2014 | 106 Comments

Four years ago, I wrote a 4,000-word essay called “The Pill at 50: Unhappy Un-Birthday,” which included this observation:

The Pill fostered a prevalence of the belief that sex without pregnancy is normal. This utterly unnatural idea is the foundation of the Contraceptive Culture.
Throughout human history, recognition of the natural connection between sex and procreation was fundamental to society’s laws, customs, attitudes and behaviors in regard to relationships between men and women. These traditions had varied from place to place, and shifted slowly from time to time, but in all times and all places, social norms had been founded on the understanding that sex and pregnancy were intrinsically linked. Indeed, from a strictly biological perspective, reproduction is the sole purpose of sex.
The Contraceptive Culture, by contrast, is based on the negation of what we may rightly call natural sexuality. . . .

You can (and certainly I wish you would) read the whole thing, because so few Americans now have any memory of life before the advent of the Contraceptive Culture, the origin, history and goals of which are generally distorted by academics and the media. For example, it is often claimed or implied that the development and promotion of oral contraceptives in the 1960s was undertaken in order to “liberate” women; in fact, this project was funded by billionaires (especially David Rockefeller) who were fanatically devoted to a eugenics-influenced vision of population control. (See Donald L. Critchlow’s excellent 2001 history, Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Goverment in Modern America.) The arguments that sold The Pill as a particular blessing to women — and which, by obverse correlation, portrayed pregnancy and motherhood as traumatic burdens to be avoided if at all possible — was promulgated by public-relations specialists hired by Rockefeller and other soi-disant “philanthropists” who shared his population-control agenda.

Because this history is so little known, and because the beliefs of the Contraceptive Culture have become so widely accepted, people are often shocked to be told the truth and sometimes become furiously outraged by those of us who dissent from the now-common way of thinking. Consider liberals’ insane reaction to the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, and also how they have reacted to conservatives’ responses. Here is what Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday:

We had a caller yesterday that asked me this question: “When did birth control pills become so important to the human condition the federal government requires every insurance policy to cover them?” Eye exams, dental exams, dental work are not mandated by Obamacare, but contraception is, birth control pills are. Which is worse, to go blind from lack of regular eye exams or to get pregnant? . . .
[I]n the normal, everyday flow of events, pregnancy requires action that has consequences. Yet we treat it as a great imposition that women need to be protected from. It’s a sickness, it’s a disease, it’s whatever, and there’s gotta be a pill for it. Yet they wouldn’t have the problem if they didn’t do a certain thing. It’s that simple.

Limbaugh then went on to talk about Democrats and their dishonest “War on Women” rhetoric, but what he said about pregnancy being the result of an “action that has consequences” was the lead quote in Caitlin MacNeal’s article at the liberal site Talking Points Memo, which cited Limbaugh as an example of “conservative slut-shaming.”

What you see is how something artificial becomes perceived as “normal” simply by being common, and how the New Normal is then taken for granted as, with the passage of time, people simply forget that it was ever any other way. Interstate highways, air conditioning, cable TV, the Internet — my kids can’t imagine life without any of those things, although these are all relatively recent developments.

The Interstate highway system began construction in the 1950s, yet as recently as the late 1970s — when I was a senior in high school — I-20 had not yet been completed between Atlanta and Birmingham. People my age (54) and older are able to remember what long-distance auto travel was like before the Interstate system existed, and we’re also able to remember when you made such trips in a car that didn’t have air-conditioning. Until the 1970s, if the motel or restaurant you stopped at had air-conditioning, this was a feature that the proprietors were certain to advertise on the marquee, along with “Color TV” (a novelty introduced in the 1960s.)

Nobody wants to go back to the days of black-and-white TV, nor is anyone proposing to ban artificial contraception. Yet the influence of the Contraceptive Culture is such that some people seem to have entirely forgotten that the biological teleos of sex — its natural and organic result, its scientific purpose — is reproduction.

After four decades of rhetoric about “choice,” and two decades of lectures about “safe sex,” younger Americans apparently assume that it is normal for sex to be sterile, and that for sex to produce its natural result (pregnancy) is something weird.

As Limbaugh said, people now think of fertility as a “sickness,” a “disease” that requires medical treatment. So deeply ingrained has this view become among some young people that a sex educator in Massachusetts found herself accused of being “unintentionally heteronormative,” which made her realize that her college students had “never thought about sex in terms of biology or reproduction”!

So here we have a court decision, brought about as a consequence of an ObamaCare mandate, which says simply that an employer may refrain from providing insurance coverage for certain types of birth control. That’s it — no one is being forbidden to purchase birth control, nor are any forms of birth control going to be outlawed by this decision. It is strictly a question of whether the federal government has the authority to mandate insurance coverage for birth control. Yet to judge from the reaction of some liberals, the Surpreme Court has unleashed the Sex Police upon us, and we are on the verge of a return to the Dark Ages, when people were expected to pay for their own birth control. It’s as if liberals believe birth control is a right guaranteed by the Constitution.

Now they’re protesting by handing out condoms in front of Hobby Lobby, defending your right to keep and bear no offspring.





 

Category: Contraceptive Culture, Sex

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.03.14

Posted on | July 3, 2014 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Tropical Storm Arthur To Pack Hurricane-Strength Winds By July 4

Arthur threatens NC’s Outer Banks

Could rain on some folks’ July 4 plans

Sarkozy: Accusations “Grotesque”
Charges government with political manipulation of prosecution


Japan To Ease Nork Sanctions Amid Abductee Talks
Do Norks still have kidnapped Japanese nationals?



POLITICS
Experts Say Obama Likely To Delay Deportations

Customs and Border Protection agents at the Nogales, Arizona Placement Center

Texas Rep. Lamar Smith: Obama likely to find himself “on the wrong side of the Constitution and the law”

Obama Says Further Reform Of Wall Street Needed


Bergdahl’s Fellow Soldiers Still Haven’t Been Contacted By New Probe

Poll: Obama Worst President Since WWII, Reagan Best

Sides Square Off In Court Battle Over Florida Gay Marriage Ban

Gov. Christie Vetoes New Limits On Gun Magazine Size

Military Discloses Troop Presence In Somalia



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Drops As Libyan Input Rises: WTI $104.01, Brent $110.91
Asian Stocks Mark Time Ahead Of US Jobs Data
Wall Street Ends Flat Ahead Of Payrolls, S&P Hits Record
Venture Capitalist Draper Wins US Bitcoin Auction
Kroger To Buy Online Vitamin Seller Vitacost.com
Target Asks Customers To Leave Guns Home
Facebook Tampering Probed By UK Agency
Qualcomm Buys Wilocity To Bring Gigabit Wireless To Mobile Phones
Amazon Vows To Fight FTC Over Kids’ In-App Purchases
Microsoft, Canon Ink Patent Cross-Licensing Deal
How To Delete Facebook From Your Life Completely



SPORTS
Cubs Hammer Red Sox To Cap Series Sweep

Brandon Workman talks with A.J. Pierczynski during the first inning of last night’s disaster


Offense finally hitting but pitchers collapse in 16-9 slugfest



Signed Lou Gehrig Glove Could Fetch $200K At Auction


America’s World Cup Fever More About Patriotism Than Soccer

Marlins Shut Out Scuffling Phillies 5-0

O’s Wait Out The Rain, Topple Rangers Again

Garcia Hits In A Pinch, Lifts Angels Over Pale Hose

Pirates Pound Snakes 5-1

Mariners Beat Astros 5-2 For Sweep

Nats Rally From Three Runs Down To Top Rockies, Sweep Three-Game Series



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Katherine Heigl: Back And Better Than Ever?

Feeling betrayed by career in free fall

Marie Claire UK cover girl set to star in “State Of Affairs”


Wednesday Box Office: “Tammy” #2, “Deliver Us From Evil” #3


Jewel & Husband Divorcing After Six Years


Disney Developing Witch Pic With Tina Fey, But It’s Not “Hocus Pocus 2”

Lindsay Lohan Suing “Grand Theft Auto V” Maker

David Arquette Gets Engaged To His Baby Mama

Lucy Hale’s Very Uncomfortable Audition For “Fifty Shades Of Grey”

Ryan Gosling Fought With Rachel McAdams During “The Notebook”, Wanted Her Kicked Off Set

Kendra Wilkinson Still In Shock Over Husband’s Affair, But They’re Still Living Together



FOREIGNERS
Red China Bans Ramadan Fasting By Government Officials In Sinkiang
Xi Snubs Norks With Seoul Visit
Chechen Jihadi Emerges As Face of ISIS
Saudis Deploy 30,000 Troops To Iraq Border
Two Dead In Mandalay Religious Violence
Japanese Politician’s Meltdown Becomes Internet Sensation
Ukrainian, Russian Foreign Ministers Agree To Seek Joint Ceasefire
Russia Vetoes “House Of Cards” Filming In UN Security Council
Senator McCain Meets PM Modi, Expresses Desire To Expand US-India Strategic Partnership
Famine Headed For South Sudan?



BLOGS & STUFF
Doug Powers: Sobby Lobby – Harry Reid, Patty Murray Whine About Consequences Of Law They Supported
Twitchy: Vox Pounded For Moronic Take On Israeli Teens’ Murders
American Power: After 72-Hour Hold, 95% Of Illegals Blow Off Summons To Deportation Hearings
American Thinker: Obama And The Culture Of Death
BLACKFIVE: What Do I Say?
Conservatives4Palin: Governor Palin On “The Most Transparent Administration In American History”
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, July 2
Jammie Wearing Fools: “Smart” Take On Hobby Lobby Ruling – “Noncompliant Women Will Be Stripped Of Their Burqas And Stoned To Death”
Joe For America: Obama’s Civilian Security Force Takes Charge Of Illegal Immigrant Internment Camps
JustOneMinute: Time Heals All Wounds, or, This Too Shall Pass
Pat Dollard: Oklahoma Congressman Blocked From Entering Internment Facility For Underage Illegals
Protein Wisdom: Obama Taunts Republicans On Executive Orders
Shot In The Dark: Snipers In The Mist
STUMP: Labor Force Participation Rates – Old Vs. Young
The Jawa Report: Pot Calling Kettle Black – Pakistan Demands Afghanistan Crack Down On Militants
The Lonely Conservative: Staff Treating Illegals Threatened With Arrest If They Alerted Public To Health Threat
This Ain’t Hell: Illegals To Fort Drum?
Weasel Zippers: Poll – Majority Of Americans Say Gun Ownership “An Act Of Patriotism”
Megan McArdle: Answers To All Your Hobby Lobby Questions


Category: Live at Five

Their Agenda, and Hers

Posted on | July 2, 2014 | 31 Comments

Kelsey Miller (@mskelseymiller) is the kind of feminist who is not a lesbian. She has a boyfriend, which indicates she is open to the possibility that not all men are part of a patriarchal conspiracy to oppress her.

In other words, she’s not actually a feminist, yet.

Even as she continues to cooperate with the patriarchy’s heteronormative agenda, however, Miller thinks of herself as a feminist because (a) she is a professional writer, (b) she has a vagina, and (c) all writers with vaginas are supposed to be feminist nowadays, in the sense that they’re pro-abortion, talk about rape a lot and vote Democrat.

She’s got a book deal and she’s been on TV, talking about “intuitive eating,” which is the subject of her column, “The Anti-Diet Project.”

So, now that you know a little about Kelsey Miller, let’s talk about her going to Detroit to cover the Men’s Rights Conference. This conference turned out to be surprisingly successful, as I’ve mentioned, which did not interfere with Kelsey Miller’s profound sense of indignation that such a conference could even exist:

I’d been emailing with Dean Esmay, operations manager and managing editor of A Voice For Men, since April. The organizers of the conference, AVFM has been one of the leading publications and online meeting points for MRAs [Men’s Rights Activists] since its creation in 2009 under founder Paul Elam. Both Esmay and Elam were immediately responsive to my request to attend, and polite and willing to chat when I introduced myself, which took a few deep breaths. Not only was Paul the head of this organization, he’s known to be prolific when it came to attacking his critics online, and not one to shy from calling such women “c*nts,” “b*tches” and “stupid lying whores.” It was a strange relief to find that, as ever, humans are a lot more humane in person than online. . . .

(Never mind the possibility that some of Paul Elam’s critics may in fact be “stupid lying whores.” Men aren’t allowed to express anger at women. If a woman is stupid and dishonest, the man who takes notice of these traits is guilty of hate.)

Here is what makes the MRA movement so hard to talk about: There are real issues facing men today. Of course there are — men are human beings and human beings face adversity. Furthermore, gender bias is a two-way street. Women’s issues do not exist to the exclusion of men’s. But, in training their crosshairs on feminism, MRAs have chosen the wrong enemy. . . .

(See? You guys need her to “femsplain” your problem.)

A brief discussion on the panel concluded that there may indeed be okay individual feminists, but as a group it is evil incarnate, the end of progress. [British politician Mike] Buchanan added, with emphatic shakes of the head, that “the only form of feminism which has been of any damned consequence for more than 30 years has been radical feminism. It’s a hate-driven female supremacy ideology.” Sure, us equity feminists may have good intentions, but we have to get through “the gatekeepers” as Suzanne Venker (author of The War on Men) called them. It was Venker who truly helped me understand The Enemy, as it was. “The reality is [feminism is] a political movement. It is a force,” she explained. It doesn’t really matter how you define “a feminist,” because it’s those gatekeepers of Big Feminism that pull all the strings. “They’re in very high up places: Hollywood, the media, our universities.” The girl-power Illuminati.

(This “Illuminati” wisecrack is intended to imply that anyone concerned about the influence of feminism is paranoid. Next, Miller discusses the harassment by feminists that led to the conference being moved from the Doubletree Hotel — harassment that Miller wishes readers to believe was an imaginary threat.)

Dean [Esmay] told me the calls were anonymous, but AVFM [the website A Voice for Men] naturally believed it to be the “ideological feminists” making these threats. Furthermore, they had screenshots from a Facebook group of people planning to protest outside the DoubleTree, and were able to pinpoint the one person they suspected was behind it all: Emma Howland-Bolton.
Howland-Bolton is a fifth grade teacher in Detroit with a history of activism. She’s participated in sit-ins to protest the closing of city libraries and networked with women’s shelters and Take Back The Night. . . .

(Gosh, a feminist “with a history of activism” on the Detroit city payroll; maybe she’s part of the “girl-power Illuminati.”)

She’d only become aware of the conference in recent weeks. It had become a much bigger story after the Isla Vista shootings led news media to draw conclusions about Elliot Rodger and his connection to various MRA communities. Like most reasonable people, Emma understood that Rodger’s actions were those of a mentally ill person, and yet could not discount that his rhetoric regarding victimhood and ostracism by women echoed claims made by the Men’s Rights Movement. She joined a Facebook group petitioning the DoubleTree not to host the conference — but she was not the leader.
Emma was as surprised as anyone when the letter [identifying her as the leader ofthe FAcebook group] went up on AVFM. Her friend Joel actually created the group, yet Emma was the one whose job was suddenly in jeopardy as calls came in to her superintendent, decrying her as a criminal, a violent woman, and a threat to the children she educated. Still, she planned to protest with the rest on June 7. “I love this city. I love teaching here. I love living here. To have a hate group come here because of what they feel Detroit represents, I find really offensive.” . . .

(Who told Emma Howland-Bolton that this conference was “a hate group”? Did she read that on the Internet? Does she believe everything she reads on the Internet? How does someone so naive and credulous get hired as a school teacher? Oh . . . it’s Detroit.)

On June 7, the DoubleTree protest went as planned and the hotel accepted the petition. Two days later, it announced it would not be hosting the conference. . . .

(Another triumph for the Girl Power Illuminati!)

[At the conference] I chatted with Mike Buchanan for a moment, waiting for the day’s presentations to begin. Smiling and friendly, he was clearly pumped for his upcoming speech on the political issues men face today.
“I can’t think of a single battle you ladies haven’t won,” he guffawed. Sitting right next to me, his tone was different than it had been from behind the mic. It felt almost like a high-five. I asked him again about his take on radical feminists and why he thinks they’re the problem.
“Radical feminists are typically quite psychologically damaged,” Mike explained. He waved his hand, gesturing at the various factors that might have contributed to this mental disorder. “Dad wasn’t in the picture…”
“Right.” Really, what was I supposed to say? I had two more days in this room. . . .

Well, you can read the whole thing. It is obvious that, like most women who call themselves feminists because they’re pro-abortion and vote Democrat, Kelsey Miller hasn’t studied feminism as a theory, or otherwise she’d realize that Mike Buchanan is absolutely correct: “Radical feminists are typically quite psychologically damaged.” Feminism is for such women a political substitute for therapy. They refuse to accept the possibility that their dissatisfactions and resentments are a result of their own failures, or that their sense of being victimized by men — whatever its basis in reality — can never be expunged by a campaign of political vengeance against all men collectively. Externalizing responsibility for their problems on the scapegoated male, these “psychologically damaged” women never have a minute’s peace, or let anyone else have a minute’s peace, either. Constant “activism” is like a Prozac prescription for them, although plenty of feminists are also on anti-depressants.

Scratch a feminist, and a kook bleeds.

I’d suggest that Kelsey Miller take time to read a Women’s Studies textbook, except that her boyfriend would never forgive me. Ultimately, feminist theory is incompatible with heterosexuality. A little bit of Adrienne Rich, Mary Daly, Sheila Jeffreys — it wouldn’t take much consciousness-raising, probably, before Kelsey Miller got over her “compulsory heterosexuality,” realized she was being exploited by her boyfriend, embraced her radical lesbian identity and decided to attend the FemiFest in London.

Because “PIV is always rape, OK?”





 

Category: Feminism

What @AdamRichman Learned

Posted on | July 2, 2014 | 64 Comments

Maybe you haven’t heard about this controversy, but it’s a helpful lesson in the unstated rules of 21st-century discourse. Adam Richman is a former actor and self-educated chef who, for four seasons 2008-2011, was the star of the Travel Channel series Man vs. Food and its sequel, Man vs. Food Nation. The show was a favorite of mine. If you’ve never seen it, the gimmick was this: Richman would go to a city and visit several of his favorite restaurants in the city. Each episode would conclude with Richman taking on a challenge, which usually involved him gobbling down some ungodly number of sandwiches — or burgers, pizza, “Atomic Hot Wings,” whatever — in order to have his picture placed on the restaurant’s “Wall of Fame.”

It was fun to watch and the food was always delicious-looking, but inevitably Richman got kind of pudgy from all that eating. Then he went on a diet and lost 70 pounds, becoming sufficiently fit that he was photographed nude for the British edition of Cosmopolitan.

Understandably, Richman was proud of his dieting success, so he posted a photo of himself wearing a pair of pants from his “fat” size, holding out the waist to show how much he had lost. When he posted this photo on Instagram, he used the hashtag #thinspiration.

That hashtag apparently invited a harsh comment from a “body image” activist (as angry fat chicks now call themselves), and Richman did not react wisely: “DILLIGAF?” (Do I Look Like I Give a F–k) was his first comment, and this attracted another “body image” activist who “made a post about Adam’s ‘DILLIGAF’ comment on my personal Instagram, and asked my followers to ‘tell him that eating disorders are not a joke and nothing to take lightly.’ My followers did just that, but I didn’t for one second predict the vitriol that followed.”

The so-called “vitriol” from Richman wasn’t anything particularly shocking to people who are accustomed to online arguments:

“Give me a f–king break. If anyone acts like a c–t I’ll call them one. It’s not misogyny, it’s calling a spade a spade.”
and
“No — I legitimately don’t give a f–k about haters & close minded internet loudmouths like you. . . . Seriously, grab a razor blade and & draw a bath. I doubt anyone will miss you.”

Like I said: Not shocking to people accustomed to such arguments, yet not quite in keeping with the wholesome image of the host of a popular TV series. As a result, Richman’s new show was delayed:

The Travel Channel has pulled the plug on Adam Richman’s new series, “Man Finds Food,” after the TV host’s rant on Instagram over a picture related to his recent weight loss.
“Man Finds Food” was supposed to debut July 2, but the channel announced that the show has been postponed, reports the Washington Post.
It did not offer a new premiere date. But the “Man vs. Food” host posted this encouraging remark on Facebook: “Still waiting for a airing date for the show. “Stay tune (sic) MFF fans!”
Last month, Richman drew outrage after he wrote a string of expletives on Instagram in response to fans criticizing his use of the hashtag #thinspiration — which is often associated with anorexia and pro-eating disorder messages. . . .
He eventually apologized via Twitter and deleted all of his Instagram messages related to the incident.
In a statement to ABC News, Richman said he is sorry for his “inexcusable remarks.”
“I’ve long struggled with my body image and have worked very hard to achieve a healthy weight,” Richman said.

There is a word for this: Crazy.

Yes, Richman’s use of the f-word and the c-word were probably a breach of the standard clause in TV contracts that obligate on-air talent to refrain from engaging in obnoxious/immoral public behavior. But Charlie Sheen is still on TV, and there are lots of other TV stars who keep working despite DUIs and other personal scandals that lead to unfortunate tabloid headlines. So what happened?

The Feminist Thought Police got him. This controversy wasn’t really about eating disorders and “body image,” except insofar as those issues are a subset of the Feminist Grievance Cluster, along with date rape, the “pay gap,” abortion and Hobby Lobby.

Maybe there are male “body image” activists, but I never heard of one. No, it’s exclusively a fat chick issue, which means it’s also a feminist issue, and one look at Amber Sarah — the fat chick who may have cost Adam Rich his TV show — tells you all you need to know.

Her blog is called “Adipose Activist: One fat girl’s battle against size discrimination,” and I’ve got a terrible fear that fans of Adam Richman may be tempted to say rude things about Amber Sarah. So whatever you do, don’t say anything rude about her.

And here’s what I mean about “the unstated rules of 21st-century discourse”: You might think that feminists who are ostentatiously concerned about fairness and discrimination and equality would recognize that this means they have to play by the same rules as everybody else. On the Internet, it is customary — indeed, it seems obligatory — that when people disagree, they say the meanest things they can think of to denounce their antagonists: They’re ugly, they’re stupid, they are devotees of hideous sexual perversion.

For example, people on the Internet who hate me seem to enjoy making remarks accusing me of being homosexual despite the fact that (a) I’ve been married for 25 years and have six children and a new grandson, and (b) these people are usually “progressives” who make a big show of denouncing conservatives as homophobes.

Having been called a “faggot” innumerable times by these Enlightened Disciples of Progress, I understand that they have no actual principles or moral standards, and the same is generally true of feminists. They demand to be treated as equal to men, but when I respond to their stupid arguments the way I’d respond to any stupid argument made by a man — i.e., with cruel, mocking sarcasm — they act as if this proves that I am a hateful misogynist, and perhaps also either (a) a faggot, or (b) someone with a small penis, or usually (c) both.

That these assertions are false is obvious enough, and they are also logically invalid as argument, ad hominem. Even if I were a small-penised homosexual, this would not prove that (a) feminist ideology is coherent, or that (b) my mocking sarcasm isn’t funny as hell.

By categorizing all disagreement as hate, feminists are attempting to dictate rules of discourse whereby they win every argument simply by virtue of the fact that they possess vaginas. And because they preemptively categorize all critics as misognynistic monsters undeserving of respect, feminists thereby authorize themselves to employ Any Means Necessary to destroy their critics.

Thus, Adam Richman is at risk of losing his TV career because he said rude things to a fat chick, as if we should be shocked that a guy from Brooklyn would say rude things in the heat of an argument.

Stipulate that the c-word is a particularly hateful insult that I never use myself. Further stipulate that suggesting someone should commit suicide is at least cruel and uncouth. But, again: Adam Richman is from Brooklyn, where the use of hateful, insulting, cruel and uncouth language has been elevated to an art form. It’s his culture, the same way suicide bombing is part of the Palestinian culture.

Anyway, if Travel Channel dumps Adam Richman, I’ve got an idea for his next reality-show series, an idea that would be perfect for Spike TV: Beautiful women compete to prove that they know their way around the kitchen in . . . Make Me a #$@&ing Sandwich.

Eating well is the best revenge and, whatever you do, don’t say anything rude about Amber Sarah the “body image” activist.





 

Category: Celebrities, Feminism

If You Want Blood…

Posted on | July 2, 2014 | 15 Comments

— Wombat-socho


You got it.

This week, we have a plethora of novels filled with (more than) a bit of the old ultra-violence, ranging from the retail death and destruction dealt by Agent Franks of the Monster Control Bureau in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter Nemesis through the horrific carnage in Tom Kratman’s The Rods and the Axe to the world-wrecking war depicted in Christopher Nuttall’s The Trafalgar Gambit, which wraps up the trilogy begun in Ark Royal.


Before all that, though, I want to put in a good word for Andy Weir’s The Martian, a good old-fashioned hard-SF epic about an astronaut marooned on Mars after his crewmates leave him for dead during a sandstorm. Not only is our hero not dead, he manages to kludge together the tools he needs to survive and communicate with NASA back on Earth. It’s a gripping tale of survival, bureaucratic and technical struggle, and humorous touches. Hard to believe the legacy publishers turned this down – no, actually, these days it’s not surprising at all. Currently marked down to about $5 and very much worth it.


Now let us praise famous monsters, particularly Agent Franks of the Federal Monster Control Bureau. Longtime readers of Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International series (first three books helpfully collected in The Monster Hunters) will be familiar with the Frankenstein Monster of few words who serves as the nigh-unstoppable strong right fist of the MCB, and probably have mixed emotions about the construct sworn to defend America by Ben Franklin himself. Franks has long had just one condition on his contract: that the United States never attempt to build another construct like him. When the manipulative head of Special Task Force Unicorn breaks the contract and frames Franks for a rampage in MCB headquarters, that contract is broken, and Franks sets out on what may be his last mission: destroy the “improved” constructs created by Project Nemesis. It turns out there’s a lot more to Agent Franks than anyone (except possibly that sly rogue Franklin) ever suspected, and it all makes for a gripping tale that you should definitely make time for. Five stars and a strong recommendation; I have no idea how the International Lord of Hate is going to top this, but in the meantime, if you want to get yourself an autographed copy, he’s currently on tour doing signings, starting tomorrow at Uncle Hugo’s in Minneapolis.


The Rods and the Axe is the most recent novel in the series that began with A Desert Called Peace, which on one level is about the seemingly suicidal war between Balboa (Panama) and the Tauran (European) Union, a war which Balboa has inexplicably widened to include Zhong Guo (China). Patricio Carrera is playing more than one game, though; while Balboa’s nation in arms digs in to defend itself and bleed the TU and the Zhong white, Carrera is playing a longer game against the United Nations Peace Fleet, whose Admiral Wallenstein has clawed herself up from little better than a sex toy to last defender of the corrupt oligarchy that rules Earth. A good read; if you enjoyed the first five books in the series, this will be right up your alley, and if you’re not sure this is your cup of tea, well, you can always try A Desert Called Peace for free and see if it is. As usual, Kratman pulls no punches in his descriptions of modern combat and the people who fight it. Recommended.


When we last left the British space carrier Ark Royal at the end of The Nelson Touch, the battered old carrier and her crew had returned to an Earth heavily damaged by an alien attack after losing a prince of the royal family who’d become a fighter pilot under an assumed name. Humanity is on the edge of losing the war, and survival may depend on whether our diplomats can help the aliens’ peace faction to prevail – or whether a doomsday bioweapon will have to be unleashed. Meanwhile, the Ark Royal’s CAG is being blackmailed – but by who? There’s a lot going on in The Trafalgar Gambit, and while I’m not sure I like the ending, it’s still a rather good space opera, well worth your time and money.


There’s a new Laundry novel out (The Rhesus Chart) but I think I can wait until that shows up in the library.


Category: Books

Department of Useless Advice

Posted on | July 2, 2014 | 17 Comments

Among other uselessness, the August issue of Cosmopolitan includes an interview with movie star Megan Fox:

“Women don’t have to be desperate and try so hard. Allow yourself to be strong and powerful and men will be crawling on their hands and knees.”

This is advice that works well if you’re Megan Fox, or somebody who even vaguely resembles Megan Fox. While I agree that women acting “desperate” is unattractive, being “strong and powerful” is unlikely to lead to men “crawling on their hands and knees” for you.

Just think of this as a three-step plan:

  1. Look like Megan Fox.
  2. Whatever.
  3. Men crawling on their hands and knees.

You see that Step Two is basically irrelevant to the success of the plan.

 

Category: Celebrities

Fertilizer Hitting Air Circulator In Mississippi Senate Runoff Controversy

Posted on | July 2, 2014 | 19 Comments

by Smitty

TRUE THE VOTE FILES SUIT AGAINST MISSISSIPPI, STATE REPUBLICAN PARTY
1st of July 2014
REQUESTS IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO ELECTION RECORDS AHEAD OF CERTIFICATION DEADLINE

OXFORD, MS. — July 1, 2014: True the Vote (TTV), the nation’s leading voters’ rights and election integrity organization, today filed suit in federal court against the Mississippi Secretary of State and the State Republican Party, asking the Court to immediately order that election records be shared to inspect for illegal votes ahead of certification for the June 24 U.S. Senate Primary Runoff Election (True the Vote, et. al v. State of Mississippi, et. al. (3:14cv144-MPM-SAA).

Read the whole thing. It sounds as though there are some serious, detailed concerns afoot here:

True the Vote’s lawsuit consists of three counts:
Count One: Violation of NVRA’s Public Disclosure Provision. Shortly before the Republican Primary Runoff Election, True the Vote, via its volunteer base, made a valid and timely request to review voter rolls and poll books under the NVRA, but it was denied access to those records.
Count Two: Individual Plaintiffs Allege a Violation of NVRA Based on Conflict with State Laws. Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the NVRA preempts any state requirement calling for public election information to be redacted at the cost of the requestor.
Count Three: Individual Plaintiffs Allege an Equal Protection Violation. Discovering potential instances of “double-voting” between Democratic and Republican primaries are unlawful dilutions of individual votes.

The Democrats have got to be laughing themselves senseless. After years of claiming that there is no significant voter fraud, and that the GOP is just Making Stuff Up, here is this steaming debacle.

Via an email list, I heard that Mississippi law precludes McDaniel running a write-in campaign, which would have seemed less egregious than calling in the sharks.

I’m optimistic that the country will survive in the long run. Passing these kidney stones just isn’t pleasant.

More at Breitbart.

Category: Mississippi, Republicans
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