The Other McCain

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

Whatever Happened to ‘Crazy’?

Posted on | April 4, 2014 | 24 Comments

Headline at American Power:

Fort Hood Shooter Was Being Treated for Depression

The Associated Press reports:

Unstable mental health may be a “fundamental, underlying cause” of a soldier’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left four people dead, though an argument with another service member likely preceded the attack, according to investigators.
Spc. Ivan Lopez turned his gun on himself after killing three people and wounding 16 others Wednesday at the sprawling Texas military base, where more than a dozen people were fatally shot by a soldier in 2009. An Army truck driver from Puerto Rico, Lopez was undergoing treatment for depression and anxiety while being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder, base officials said.

(Hat-tip: Regular Right Guy.)

We have become so sensitive about mental illness that we are afraid to call crazy by its right name. Since no one else will do it, therefore, let me be the first to say that Ivan Lopez was crazy, bonkers, deranged, off his rocker and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Being the Internet’s Leading Amateur Expert in Crazy, I’ve sometimes been accused of insensitivity toward nutjobs and wackos.

Sympathy for the demented has become so widespread that people nowadays write books  about how crazy they are, hoping to win some kind of Victimhood Derby Prize, like the lesbian professor who wrote a book about her borderline personality disorder. Being an affirmative action “twofer” — both female and homosexual — wasn’t enough for her, you see. Now she’s also disabled, so that if she goes off the deep end and starts having lesbian S & M orgies in the classroom as part of her Women’s Studies lectures, the university wouldn’t dare fire her, for fear of a civil-rights lawsuit.

Don’t laugh. Hugo Schwyzer nearly got away with that trick.

Using mental illness to play the Victimhood Card is becoming routine. Last year, when it was revealed that notorious Twitter troll Melissa Brewer (@catsrimportant) was a convicted prostitute, she immediately claimed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as an excuse. Because being a crazy whore is somehow better than being a sane whore.

So now we have the media telling us that Ivan Lopez was “undergoing treatment for depression and anxiety,” as if shooting 19 people before committing suicide wasn’t a big enough clue that his mental health was “unstable.” Gee, ya think so?

As I said four years ago, after Pentagon shooter Patrick Bedell was shot by police, “Whatever Happened to Crazy?”

 

Category: Crime

Geek Girls To Feminists: Don’t Jack Up Our Target-Rich Environment

Posted on | April 4, 2014 | 28 Comments

by Smitty

Is it National Offend a Feminist Week yet? Dr. Layla has got me on my knees, laughing at the notion that women shun Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) majors due to “concern that their ‘geeky’ male classmates will present poor social prospects“. Other major concerns listed were:

  • boring
  • they wouldn’t be any good at it.

To be sure: one should do things one finds interesting. But if you only did things you were good at, how would a feminist get past the teenage harpy stage?

When I did my engineering degree, the choice was driven my maximizing learning. All of the math and science would be kind of folded in, I rationalized, and therefore I pursued a major in control systems engineering. In middle age, the chief result of all this is that I can tell our government is running without proper stabilizing feedback, like a truck going down a hill without breaks. But I have a really bitchen piece of paper to back up my assertion, so, there.

I actually don’t know any geek girls, other than this blog’s old admin lady. Who was cool, but our traffic outgrew her patience rapidly. Or maybe it was Stacy’s dull, sonorous tones when expressing concern over technical issues. In any case, why would women in STEM majors want competition?

Challenge to feminists: just found an all-female engineering school. It turns out that there is a high school program to start women off in engineering in the back yard of Republican #WarOnWomen Generalissimo, Governor Scott Walker. Who knew? You can build that up into a full-on college, feminists.

However, moving yourselves from the “griping column” to the “doing column” is going to require new Applied Victimization research to find fresh blame targets. So, that’s an issue.

via Instapundit

Category: National Offend a Feminist Week

‘Highly Intoxicated Vaginal Penetration’: #RapeCulture and Campus Reality

Posted on | April 4, 2014 | 166 Comments

“Both sides agreed that Mr. Gilbert and the victim were at best acquaintances; both sides agreed he entered her room uninvited that night, in a highly intoxicated state, and both sides agreed that he initiated sexual contact which included vaginal penetration with the victim while she was asleep.”
— “Joint Statement,” New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (NHCADSV) and WISE (Women’s Information Services), March 27

The use of the word “victim” in that statement is rather problematic, considering that the statement was issued after Dartmouth College student Parker Gilbert was acquitted on all charges:

The foreman of the jury that found Parker C. Gilbert not guilty of sexually assaulting a Dartmouth College classmate said jurors were not swayed by the accuser’s account, which they found implausible.
Rick Rogers, of Enfield, was one of 12 jurors — six men and six women — who found Gilbert not guilty of five counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and a misdemeanor criminal trespassing charge on Thursday. Deliberations lasted about four hours.
“(The woman’s) story of how the night played out, the evidence wasn’t there to support that,” Rogers said in a phone interview Thursday evening. “To the contrary, it was more in Parker’s favor. Her statement in the morning (to a friend) — that Parker stopped by and we had sex — is just not the answer that a rape victim would have.”
The prosecution had alleged Gilbert entered the woman’s unlocked dorm room in the early hours of May 2 and began having sex with her while she was asleep. The defense argued that the sexual encounter was consensual, “clumsy, awkward, drunk college sex.”
Rogers said there were many pieces of the accuser’s story that the jury thought pointed to consensual sex, including that the next morning when she told a friend about the encounter, she didn’t characterize it as an assault. . . .
Rogers said other evidence also swayed the jury, including the testimony of Nancy Wu, the suitemate who said that she was awake and heard sounds consistent with consensual sex.
Rogers described Wu as the most credible witness. . . .
A number of the witnesses had been drinking heavily on the night in question.

The accuser was drunk, the accused was drunk, and the witnesses were drunk — evidently everybody on campus at Dartmouth was completely hammered that night, and the only thing anyone can remember for sure is that “vaginal penetration” occurred.

Permit me to digress: Can someone get a trial transcript and provide me with verbatim quotes of Nancy Wu’s testimony? Because I’m curious to know what she says she heard, which the newspaper euphemistically describes as “sounds consistent with consensual sex.” Was the alleged victim moaning passionately, as if in a state of orgasmic ecstasy? “Oh, Parker! You sexy beast! Do me, baby!” But I digress . . .

K.C. Johnson at Minding the Campus calls attention to the Gilbert verdict and the bizarre reaction to his acquittal:

How did the activists at Dartmouth respond? With a lengthy statement (still labeling the accuser as a “victim”) denouncing the jury, demanding a “cultural shift” in what could be considered a crime. . . .
If Gilbert had been convicted, the message would have been a need to address “rape culture” at Dartmouth. With Gilbert acquitted, the message was a need to address “rape culture” at Dartmouth (and in New Hampshire!). Facts, it appears, don’t matter.

More importantly, I would argue, we don’t know what the facts are. All we know is (a) drunkenness and (b) “vaginal penetration,” and everything else is a matter of “he-said/she-said” testimony by the alleged victim and witnesses. None of the witnesses actually saw the carnal act, and only one claims to have heard “sounds consistent with consensual sex,” whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.

We don’t know what we don’t know, and yet the “rape culture” activists at Dartmouth insist that certainty of Parker Gilbert’s guilt is indisputable, that any skepticism or concerns for the due process rights of the accused is tantamount to “blaming the victim.”

Do I know what happened? No, absolutely I do not know.

For all I know, Parker Gilbert is a psychopathic pervert notorious for his habit of playing “booty bandit” with sleeping coeds.

On the other hand, for all I know, Parker Gilbert may be a highly popular collegiate studmuffin, and the alleged victim may have been gleefully riding him in reverse-cowgirl position, thrilled to have the opportunity for “vaginal penetration” by his throbbing manhood.

Despite my avowed ignorance — I believe the facts of the case are ultimately unknowable, under such circumstances — my hunch is that the truth is somewhere between the two extremes. The alleged victim was likely not an enthusiastic participant in the act of “vaginal penetration,” but the subsequent accusation of rape was a misguided attempt to place criminal responsibility onto Parker Gilbert for the “clumsy, awkward, drunk college sex” that resulted.

The jury, presented with all the available evidence and testimony in the case, declared Parker Gilbert not guilty of any crime. That does not mean, however, that his actions were morally right. Nor does it mean his accuser is to blame for the “vaginal penetration.”

Whereas I see this situation skeptically, with the understanding that some things are unknowable, Dartmouth College seems to be acting as if Parker Gilbert was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt:

Amanda Childress, Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinator at Dartmouth College, campus policies aren’t going far enough to protect students.
“Why could we not expel a student based on an allegation?” Childress asked at the panel, before noting that while 2 to 8 percent of accusations are unfounded (but not necessarily intentionally false), 90 to 95 percent are unreported, committed by repeat offenders, and intentional. “It seems to me that we value fair and equitable processes more than we value the safety of our students. And higher education is not a right. Safety is a right. Higher education is a privilege.”
“If we know that a person is reasonably a threat to our community,” Childress said, “why are we not removing them and protecting the safety of our students?”

WHOA! Did you catch that? First, Childress is in favor of expelling students “based on an allegation,” because “higher education is not a right.” (The latter claim would shock advocates of affirmative action, I’m sure.) But notice, also, that Childress justifies this attitude by grabbing some statistics out of thin air to claim “90 to 95 percent [of sexual assaults on campus] are unreported, committed by repeat offenders, and intentional.” In other words, according to Childress, serial rapists are prowling our nation’s college campuses, and for every rape that is reported, at least nine others go unreported.

Does that claim seem even remotely possible? Could it be that, in this day and age, at institutions of higher education that attract our most intelligent young people, an environment exists where 90 to 95 percent of sexual assaults — intentional acts, committed by repeat offenders — are never reported to authorities at all?

Childress made those bizarre claims in February, just a few days after Dartmouth College had promoted her to director of “the newly-created Center for Community Action and Prevention, which Childress said would ‘be the focal point on campus for Dartmouth’s sexual assault and violence prevention initiatives’ and ‘drive the College’s mobilization efforts around preventing sexual violence and increasing the safety and well-being of all members of our community.'”

Except for “members of our community” who have penises.

The “well-being” of male students falsely accused of rape is of no concern to Amanda Childress or her notorious comrade Kate Burke, chairwoman of Dartmouth’s Committee on Standards.

There is no justice at Dartmouth, and there will be no peace.

 

Category: Crime, Education, Feminism, Sex

#RapeCulture: Did Anybody Notice This?

Posted on | April 4, 2014 | 72 Comments

Donald Douglas has mentioned how radical feminist Professor Caroline Heldman is stoking “rape culture” paranoia at Occidental College. Meanwhile, the violent oppression of women continues:

A Lynwood gang member was sentenced Monday, March 31, to 30 years in federal prison for running a sex-trafficking ring that recruited girls from Inland high schools.
Paul Edward Bell, 30, pleaded guilty in January to federal sex-trafficking charges. Federal authorities said he kept seven teenage girls captive after luring them into prostitution.
Bell used other prostitutes to recruit girls between the ages of 15 and 17 from high schools in Riverside and Moreno Valley, authorities said. . . .
The girls worked as prostitutes in the Compton area and lived in motels off Long Beach Boulevard. If they didn’t perform or deliver as much money as was expected, they were verbally and physically abused, prosecutors have said.
Bell held a gun to one girl’s head and locked two girls inside his apartment, prosecutors wrote in a brief recommending Bell receive the maximum sentence. He would hit the girls with his fists, a cane and a shoe. He also pepper sprayed one girl in the face, prosecutors wrote. . . .
The lead prostitute, Kimberly Alberti, 20, of Riverside, promised the girls lavish lifestyles with money and clothing for working for a pimp, according to a plea agreement that led to a two-year federal prison sentence.
Alberti and two other prostitutes — Kristy Harrell, 22, of Riverside, and Javiya Brooks, 21, of Lynwood — have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and racketeering.
Samuel Rogers, 23, and Gary Rogers, 25, both of Moreno Valley, and Christopher Weldon 24, of Compton, previously pleaded guilty to sex-trafficking charges. Su Yan, 31, a Chinese national in Rosemead, pleaded guilty to interstate transportation in the aid of racketeering.

Girls as young as 15 were being pimped out, beaten and threatened with death, right there in Southern California, within driving distance of Occidental College. But it’s so much easier for feminist academics like Caroline Heldman to gin up campus “rape culture” hysteria — in some cases, counting dirty text messages as “sexual assault” for the sake of statistical exaggeration — than for them to pay attention to teenage girls suffering  this kind of horrific violence.

Occidental College has something in common with pimps like Paul Edward Bell: They both recruit naïve girls from high schools. Parents should warn their daughters about pimps and liberal arts colleges.

 

Category: Crime, Education, Feminism, Sex

Feminist College Girls Gone … Well, OK, Not ‘Wild,’ Exactly. But My Point Is …

Posted on | April 3, 2014 | 101 Comments

Future Cat Ladies of America, unite!

Looking at photos from the “Young Feminist Leadership Conference,” one cannot help feeling a sense of pity: Here they are, young women just starting out in life — some of them moderately attractive, even — committing themselves to a philosophy that guarantees their futures will be consumed by angry baby-killing bitterness.

Hey, I said “moderately attractive.” Your mileage may vary. Some guys like the Chubby Nerd Girl look. De gustibus non est disputandum.

So, what did the Young Feminists do last weekend during their National Conference? They heard from Old Feminists like the hate-filled fanatic Eleanor Smeal and the radical atheist man-hater Kim Gandy. There were panel discussions on “Why Prison Reform Matters to the Feminist Movement,” “Defending Your Local Women’s Health Center” and (naturally) “Rape is Rape: The Fight Against Campus Sexual Assault.”

(Remember: “No woman is heterosexual” and “PIV is always rape, OK?”)

My favorite item on the NYFLC agenda, however, was “Ecofeminism: Gendered Impact of Climate Change.” Why? Because that panel discussion was moderated by “Sara Alcid, Programs and Policy Associate, Reproductive Health Technologies Project.”

We all remember self-described “queer feminist” Sara Alcid, right?

“Heteronormativity and gender roles also rear their ugly heads on Valentine’s Day. Gifts for ‘him’ or ‘her’ are clearly divided and marked and it’s almost impossible to find cards that represent queer couples. . . .
“It’s not hard to see why Valentine’s Day is problematic for many feminists. Celebrated traditionally, Valentine’s Day magnifies many of the very systems of domination that we work to critique and dismantle.”
— Sara Alcid, “Valentine’s Day: What’s A Feminist To Do?” EverydayFeminism.com, Feb. 14, 2013

Well, the patriarchy got thoroughly smashed at the conference, I guess, but there were murmurs about lingering heteronormativity.

Beyond the complaints about insufficient “queer” representation, the National Young Feminist Leadership Conference made headlines by attacking conservative journalist Katherine Timpf:

Campus Reform’s Katherine Timpf attended the National Young Feminist Leadership Conference (NYFLC) — an event which promised to be about “inclusivity” and welcoming everyone — only to be told that “conservative” women were not welcome.
Timpf attempted to ask students’ their opinions on feminism, but conference organizers made an announcement advising participants not to talk to Campus Reform because it was a “conservative” outlet.
The organizers also followed Timpf around the conference to interrupt her conversations with students to tell them the same thing.
“They’re a group that’s conservative, so what we are fighting for is not something…” one organizer told a student who was talking with Timpf, prompting the student to walk away. . . .
“You guys aren’t wanted here,” a participant told the reporter after the warning.
“I thought this was supposed to be an inclusive thing, why am I being excluded because of where I work?” Timpf asked another organizer after another interruption.
“Because the place that you work is not inclusive,” the organizer responded.

After seeing these feminist festivities, I’m sure many young women are asking, “What can I do? I’d like to be a feminist, but I can’t afford to attend a national conference or spend years getting a Women’s Studies degree from an elite private university.”

Relax, ladies. Becoming a feminist is actually very simple:

  1. Get an abortion;
  2. Become a lesbian;
  3. Vote Democrat;
    and
  4. Cats. Lots of cats.

You’re welcome. Always glad to help.





 

Category: Abortion, Education, Feminism

Barrett Brown Cops a Plea

Posted on | April 3, 2014 | 20 Comments

September 2012: Barrett Brown vows to ‘destroy’ an FBI agent

More than a year and a half since the paranoid YouTube meltdown that got him arrested on charges of threatening an FBI agent, former Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown has signed a plea bargain agreement with federal prosecutors on hacking charges:

Barrett Brown, whose case became a cause célèbre after he was charged with crimes related to the Stratfor hack, has agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors, according to court filings.
Prosecutors filed a motion this week in a Texas court to seal the plea agreement, which the court granted.
Brown’s attorney, Ahmed Ghappour, won’t discuss the details, due to a court-ordered gag, but another document filed by the government this week (.pdf) hints at the nature of the deal. . . .
Brown is scheduled to be re-arraigned, on the charges on the superceding document, on April 29 in Texas.
Brown is also facing charges related to threats he allegedly made against an FBI agent. It’s unclear if the plea agreement will cover that indictment as well. If it does, and the two cases are combined, Brown’s maximum statutory sentence would likely be five years.

The “threats he allegedly made”? Are you freaking kidding me? Go watch that video again. There is no “allegedly” about it.

Of course, as I said at the time, that video was also “13 minutes of absolute 100% bugfucking nuts.” The problem for a narcissist like Barrett is that his pose as an “investigative reporter” and a First Amendment martyr prevents him from admitting the fundamental truth: He was an amateur chasing a hero fantasy, as if it were all a video game or an action-adventure spy thriller movie.

He got in over his head, couldn’t cope with the stress, flipped out and became “The Kook Who Knew Too Much.”
Striking a heroic pose for his (equally deranged) anarchist admirers, however, Barrett can never admit this. All you have to do is read the Twitter reactions to the news of the plea deal to see this: The Radical Hero of the People’s Glorious Revolution cannot be seen as cooperating with the government. He must always Fight the Power, and some members of the anarchist kook mob simply can’t understand why a guy who was potentially facing 50 years in federal prison would cop a plea to reduced charges.

Barrett Brown did the smart thing by taking the plea deal, and so now maybe he’ll be out  on the street before he’s 40.

 

Category: Barrett Brown, Crime

FORT HOOD SHOOTING

Posted on | April 2, 2014 | 58 Comments

UPDATE 10:10 p.m. ET: Some four hours since gunfire erupted at Fort Hood, Texas, we now have confirmed details about the atrocity:

Four people including a gunman are dead and 14 others are injured after a shooting late Wednesday afternoon at Fort Hood, according to several sources including U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, chairman the House Homeland Security Committee.
The shooting led to a lockdown on post that was lifted just before 9 p.m. Wednesday.
Traffic was heavy Wednesday night as personnel streamed off post.
CBS News identified the shooter as Ivan Lopez, 34.
Lopez, an Army truck driver, was reportedly in uniform at the time of the shooting.

We don’t much about motives, but the shooter is dead, the crisis is over, and now the survivors grieve.

* * * PREVIOUSLY * * *

Details are sketchy at this point, and I don’t want to encourage speculation. TV and online reports indicate that there is an “active shooter” situation at Fort Hood, Texas, and that there are at least two people wounded so far.

UPDATE: Fox News has just reported that, according to a law enforcement source, the shooter has been “neutralized.” Some online reports suggest that this may be a domestic dispute, possibly a murder-suicide. However, I hasten to add that early reports in situations like this are often unreliable. Be patient, and wait for confirmation.

UPDATE II: KWTX-TV reports:

At least one person is dead after a shooting late Wednesday afternoon on Fort Hood, a post spokesman confirmed. Others were injured in the shooting, but the spokesman didn’t say how many.

Again, remember: Early reports are often unreliable.

UPDATE III:

UPDATE IV: Fox News now reports that the gunman is dead, perhaps of a self-inflicted gunshot, and there are three dead and at least 10 wounded. But I emphasize, again, that early reports of an incident like this are often unreliable, and very few facts so far are publicly and officially confirmed.

UPDATE V: Details are now firming up:

 

Category: Crime

Internet Douchebag Patrol

Posted on | April 2, 2014 | 113 Comments

Look, it’s not as if there were a shortage of actual news for me to blog about today. For example, my friend Shaun McCutcheon won a landmark Supreme Court decision today, and there’s all kinds of commentary about McCutcheon v. FEC.

Here is a guy from Alabama who has bought me beers whose name is forever destined to be cited as a legal precedent and yet, I feel myself constrained merely to make brief notice of the decision, because the Internet is swarming with douchebags today.

I’m talking about you, Gregory Bernstein of Vanderbilt University.

Do I need some overprivileged college freshman to lecture me about “rape culture”? No, I most certainly do not. I’ll quote your ridiculous Huffington Post sermonette only briefly:

Rape culture is a culture in which we allow responsibility for sexual violence to be shifted from the rapist to the victim. Rape culture is a culture in which our first reaction upon learning about an alleged assault is to doubt victims, to ask what they were wearing, or what they were drinking. Rape culture is a culture in which myths and misconceptions about rape are allowed to be taught as truth.

Two words for you, Greg: Individual responsibility.

Cultures don’t rape people. Rapists rape people. What is objectionable about these endless “rape culture” lectures is that they represent an effort to demonize all men, to create a collective responsibility for crimes committed by individuals. Or, allegedly committed, as the circumstances in some cases are strongly disputed.

“Reasonable doubt” was all the rage after O.J. Simpson’s wife and her boyfriend got their throats cut, but let two drunk college kids get into an argument about whether she was sober enough to consent to sex last night, and anyone who mentions “reasonable doubt” is condemned as a slut-shaming, victim-blaming misogynist.

Stop preaching, Greg, as if we were ignorant fools in need of your enlightenment. Everybody is against rape, except rapists.

The problem, which is rampant on university campuses, is that there is a Hook-Up Culture, a Friends With Benefits Culture, and a Let’s Chug Vodka Until We’re Nearly Comatose Culture, all of which lead to situations in which “consent” is a he-said/she-said dispute, where evidence is ambiguous or non-existent, and where some people want us to disregard all due process protections for the accused.

But here, Greg, let me quote you briefly once more:

It’s time for individuals as well as colleges and universities to re-teach what it means to have consent. Consent is active, continuous, and given freely. Consent requires sobriety. Consent can be withdrawn. Consent to one sexual act is not consent to all sexual acts. “No” doesn’t mean “convince me.”

Restraining my urge to offer a sarcastic reply I’m sure I would regret, let me say this: You’re attempting to repeal human nature.

Such is the feminist “rape culture” project in its pure essence. As I’ve said before, the argument boils down to, “Shut up, because rape.”

All men must submit to feminist re-education, so angry lesbians can teach them to be as meek and harmless as geriatric eunuchs.

“Do I have your permission to get an erection, Amanda?”

Here’s some advice for college girls: If you are reasonably attractive and in the proximity of vigorous, manly, robust young fellows, be aware that such fellows are all savage sex-crazed animals who dream of passionately thrusting their rigid manhood deep inside you.

On the other hand, if the guys around you are pathetic Vanderbilt wimps like Greg Bernstein, you’re safe from all that.

Now, run along like a nice boy, Greg. We certainly wouldn’t want you to miss your next Women and Gender Studies class.

 

Category: Crime, Education, Sex
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin