The Other McCain

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

Crazy People Are Crazy

Posted on | February 11, 2014 | 15 Comments

Because I so often highlight criminal wrongdoing by people associated with the Left, it behooves me not to ignore criminality by people associated with the Right, the latest example of which is a 58-year-old Seattle man once considered a pro-life hero of sorts:

The tips started coming in shortly after authorities released surveillance photos of a man suspected of groping an 11-year-old girl at a Fred Meyer store in Snohomish.
The callers were certain the thin man in glasses was Curtis Anton Beseda, who once served 12 years in federal prison for setting fire to abortion clinics in Western Washington in the 1980s.

Crime is crime, arson is arson, sexual assault is sexual assault and — not to put too fine a point on it — crazy is crazy:

The person who knew Beseda from college described him as having “unique mannerisms” and a condition that apparently compels him to hover at doorways, entering and exiting several times, before finally going in or out, court documents indicate. . . .
The neighbor . . . provided police with Beseda’s license-plate number and a short video she’d taken of him walking to get his mail, according to prosecutors.
The woman told police she took the video because he “had an odd way of walking, counting his steps and avoiding cracks,” according to charging documents. . . .
He served 12 years of a 20-year sentence and was released in 1996, according to court documents.
In 1997 he was taken back into custody on a parole violation and rereleased in 2003, court documents show.
Since then, he has accrued three misdemeanor convictions for criminal trespassing and fourth-degree assault, according to court documents.
The (Everett) Herald reported that Beseda was accused of attempted arson in Snohomish and ordered to undergo a mental-health evaluation in 2004 . . .
Beseda was banned from the church and school grounds of the Immaculate Conception Church in Everett after he was accused of trespassing and obstructing, according to The Herald.
Three years ago, he was arrested in a harassment case in Puyallup, convicted and sent to one of the state’s mental hospitals.

It would now appear in retrospect that the 1983-84 abortion-clinic arsons — which made Beseda seem heroic in the eyes of some pro-lifers — were actually symptomatic of an underlying chronic personality disorder that has gotten progressively worse.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, and I’d probably be able to figure it all out, but I’ve been kind of distracted lately . . .

 

BOMBER SUES BLOGGERS





 

 


Category: Crime

Shirley Temple Black, R.I.P.

Posted on | February 11, 2014 | 20 Comments

Before there was Dance Moms, before the Disney Channel became the incubator of young show-biz talent, there was Shirley Temple:

Shirley Temple Black, who as a dimpled, precocious and determined little girl in the 1930s sang and tap-danced her way to a height of Hollywood stardom and worldwide fame that no other child has reached, died on Monday night at her home in Woodside, Calif. She was 85. . . .
Ms. Black returned to the spotlight in the 1960s in the surprising new role of diplomat, but in the popular imagination she would always be America’s darling of the Depression years, when in 23 motion pictures her sparkling personality and sunny optimism lifted spirits and made her famous. From 1935 to 1939 she was the most popular movie star in America, with Clark Gable a distant second. She received more mail than Greta Garbo and was photographed more often than President Franklin D. Roosevelt. . . .
After marrying Charles Alden Black in 1950, she became a prominent Republican fund-raiser. She was appointed a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly by President Richard M. Nixon in 1969. She went on to win wide respect as the United States ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976, was President Gerald R. Ford’s chief of protocol in 1976 and 1977, and became President George H.W. Bush’s ambassador to Czechoslovakia in 1989, serving there during the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Shirley Temple ended her acting career at age 22 after her marriage to Black, who was in fact her second husband. At 17, she married John Agar, with whom she appeared in John Ford’s 1948 classic, Fort Apache.

The New York Times asserts that Shirley Temple’s movie career ended because the “public had lost interest,” yet her appearances as a teenager (I’ll Be Seeing You, The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer) and young adult (Honeymoon) showed promise.

Her basic career problem was two-fold: As a child, she had been a superstar, a phenomenon, whereas as an adult, she was just another actress; furthermore, while she had won acclaim for her precocious performances as a singer and dancer, her singing never became the kind of asset that would have qualified her for leading roles in musicals. So it would have been difficult for her ever to have replicated her childhood stardom as an adult, which is not the same as saying she could not have continued working as an actress. One wonders, for example, whether she might have enjoyed a career in a 1950s sitcom (a la Lucille Ball), but this is speculation, because it seems she was simply tired of Hollywood, and her second husband was happy to have her as a wife and mother.

Shirley Temple’s biography is also interesting for what it illustrates about the role of marriage as a defining social institution in the era before the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. She was a teen bride and a teen mother, still only 19 when she gave birth to her first child Susan in 1948. John Agar, an Army veteran seven years older than his wife, had difficulty adjusting to the role of “Mr. Shirley Temple” and developed a drinking problem. Shirley Temple filed for divorce in 1949 and thereby became what we would now call a “single mother.” But she didn’t stay single long, marrying Charles Black only a few months after her divorce was finalized. Her second marriage lasted 55 years, and she became the mother of two more children — “Happily Ever After.”

We have a lot fewer fairly-tale endings — and a lot less happiness — nowadays because the decline of marriage has changed our culture’s entire system of beliefs and behaviors regarding sex, love and parenthood. The most significant indicator of this cultural shift is the median age at first marriage which, in 1950, was about 21 for women and 23 for men, but is now nearly 27 for women and over 28 for men. Explaining what that shift means in terms of any young person’s prospects for marriage has been the subject of extensive research by Maggie Gallagher (The Abolition of Marriage), Barbara Dafoe Whitehead (The Divorce Culture), and David Popenoe (Families Without Fathers), among others. The fact that 40% of U.S. babies are born to unmarried women is the most obvious statistical result of this shift. What is less easy to document as a sociological phenomenon is the increased prevalence of loneliness and misery among young people. However, the causes and effects of the decline of marriage are deliberately obscured by liberals in media and academia who scarcely bother to conceal their contempt for the traditional culture of marriage-based families. But I digress . . .

Charles Black was fortunate to marry “America’s Sweetheart,” and he praised his wife’s good sense and emotional stability: “Over 38 years I have participated in her life 24 hours a day through thick and thin, traumatic situations, exultant situations, and I feel she has only one personality. She would be catastrophic for the psychiatric profession.”

In an era where tabloid headlines are full of the latest starlet misadventures — is Selena Gomez in rehab or out of rehab today? — Shirley Temple Black’s wonderful life story reminds us that it was not always thus, and that the old-fashioned culture of wholesomeness and decency she represented was not a myth, but a reality.

 

Category: Celebrities, Culture, History, Marriage

What This Economy Needs Is Another Stab In The Heart

Posted on | February 11, 2014 | 9 Comments

by Smitty via Drudge

The river of lies is gearing up for a Spring flood, according to the Washington Free Beacon:

The Obama administration has yet to finalize 28 additional regulations under Obamacare that could lead to an “avalanche” of regulatory burden on the economy, according to an analysis by the American Action Forum.
A report released Monday by Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at American Action Forum, details the billions in cost and millions in paperwork hours that will result from the pending regulations, including the individual mandate, which has yet to be finalized.

Swing lowwww,
Regulatory chariot,
Coming for to
Liberate me from the tedium of labor. . .Needs some polishing. But that’s what this river of lies is all about, right?

Category: Health Care

FMJRA 2.0: High Energy Protons

Posted on | February 11, 2014 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The Pervert Rights Movement

The Needle and the Spoon

Rule 5 Sunday: All Hail The Superb Owl!

#IStandWithDana Gun-Control Freaks Try to Bounce @DLoesch from ‘The View’

Obama: ‘What IRS Scandal?’

Another IRS Stonewall

LIVE AT FIVE: 02.04.14

Could Jamie Casino Find ‘A Smidgen’ Of Corruption At The IRS?

Whose Children Are They?

How Much Do You Hate Commies?

The Renegade Jesse Myerson

Is #FreeBleeding a Hoax? UPDATE: Hoax Came From 4chan

My Brother Shut Down Atlanta?

FMJRA 2.0: Waiting For The Superb Owl

‘A Genius in France,’ IYKWIMAITYD

Amanda Bynes Returns to Sanity?

#OccupyResoluteDesk Gives O’Reilly 10 Mins Of Variations On ‘Shut Up, Peasant’

This Should Not Be Necessary

Illinois Taxpayers Lose Super Bowl

Bill Schmalfeldt Continues His Insane Investment in Brett Kimberlin’s RICO Suit

Hoffman Planned Heroin Binge?

Lesbian Teacher Could Face Life Sentence for Molesting Two Girls in California

#BlogBash Nominations Are Open

Failure Is Not a Public-Relations Problem: The Brutal Economics of ObamaCare

‘The Court Should Dismiss … With Prejudice in Favor of All Defendants’

LIVE AT FIVE: 02.05.14

Unemployed Magazine Executives

Boycott Abortion Cookies

‘A National Political Celebrity’

Teach Your Children Well

In The Mailbox: 02.06.14

The Glorious All-American Hamburger

ObamaCare’s Compulsory Race Question

In The Mailbox, 02.07.14

Meanwhile, Elsewhere In The Culture War…

Top linkers this week:

  1. Rick’s Rants (29)
  2. Regular Right Guy (20)
  3. EBL (9 +8 Batshit Crazy News)
  4. Dead Citizens Rights Society (6 +1 Dead Republican Party)
  5. (tied) A View From The Beach and Political Rift (6)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery and patience! I’ll be off the internet next weekend, so unless Smitty chooses to take up the FMJRA cudgels again, the next deadline will be noon on Washington’s Birthday, February 22.


Category: FMJRA Award

‘L’Etat, C’est Moi’

Posted on | February 11, 2014 | 31 Comments

President Obama is a law unto himself:

“ObamaCare” is useful shorthand for the Affordable Care Act not least because the law increasingly means whatever President Obama says it does on any given day.

He has once again delayed the employer mandate. The timetable for implementation of the law — which was written into the law — turns out to have been meaningless, and our latter-day Sun King has granted so many exemptions to the law that it has no meaning beyond his royal will. Everybody made fun of Nancy Pelosi for saying that Congress had to pass the bill (which neither she nor any other Democrat member of Congress had read in its entirety) so we would know what was in it.

Now we see her point, however: It didn’t really matter what was in the law, because Democrats don’t believe in the Rule of Law, and ObamaCare was essentially carte blanche: “That’s the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want.”

 

Category: Barack Obama, Health Care

Reality 1, Feminism 0

Posted on | February 11, 2014 | 14 Comments

Ideologues fetishize intellectual abstractions to the point that real life confuses them. Lori Gottlieb is therefore stunned:

The more traditional the division of labor, meaning the greater the husband’s share of masculine chores compared with feminine ones, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction.

So says an academic study, at least, and therefore the science is settled. The problem — maybe Gottlieb doesn’t understand this — is that feminism is an ideology developed by lesbian Marxists who hate men. Feminist ideology is therefore not about improving relationships between men and women; it’s about teaching women to hate men, so that all women can become Marxist lesbians.

One way to undermine the heteronormative patriarchy is to prevent men from becoming the kind of men that women love, i.e., successful, confident, masculine-type men. This is why schools have been re-organized to punish boys for acting like boys. As men become increasingly demoralized, disempowered and dysfunctional, they are simply less attractive (and less valuable) as mates.

And feminists say, “Hooray, equality!”

Feminists cheer this trend because feminists are Marxist lesbians, and every bad thing that happens to men is good news to them.

Fish, bicycle, some assembly required.

 


Category: Feminism

LIVE AT FIVE: 02.11.14

Posted on | February 11, 2014 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE: 02.11.14

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Ambassador Powell Makes A U-Turn

Chief Minister Narendra Modi (BJP-Gujarat)

Decision to meet BJP contender for PM marks reversal of US policy
AAP Shifts Focus, Levels Corruption Charges Against Modi




EU Alarmed At Swiss Immigration Vote
Swiss, European leaders react warily to vote

White House Delays Employer Mandate
McConnell calls on Administration to throw out all of the ACA’s mandates



POLITICS
Nevada Drops Defense Of Gay Marriage Ban As Utah Picks Up Allies

Nevada governor Brian Sandoval

Nevada’s Democratic AG opines that recent decisions by Supremes make state law indefensible

Obama Outpaces Predecessors In Appointing Donors To Plum Posts

Eric Holder Reportedly To Step Down This Year

Administration Debates Drone Strike Against U.S. Citizen Working With Al-Qaeda In Pakistan

Target Of Wisconsin “Secret” Probe Files Suit, Claims Prosecutors Punishing Walker Allies

Democrats Enjoy Cash Advantage Over GOP Challengers

GOP May Call Debt Ceiling Vote Tomorrow

NJ Panel Approves More Subpeonas In Christie Bridge Probe



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
WTI Waits Above $100 For Yellen, Brent Dips Slightly: NYMEX $100.01, Brent $18.65
Dollar Retreats Ahead Of Yellen Remarks
Wheels Fly Off GM CEO’s Pay Story
Icahn Drops Apple Campaign
Justice Department Sued Over $13 Million JPMorgan Pact
B&N Slashes Jobs After Nook Holiday Sales Decline
Bill Gates Explains His New Role At Microsoft
Apple Loses Bid To Boot Court-Appointed Antitrust Monitor
Nokia Reportedly Preparing Android Smartphone
Google To Restore Hangar One, Operate Runways At Moffett Field
Virgin Atlantic Puts On Google Glasses



SPORTS
Celtics Pull Away In Fourth, Cruise Past Bucks 102-86

The Bucks’ Pachulia tries to block the Celtics’ Jeff Green in the first half

Green scores 19 of 29 in second half, leads Boston to victory

Rockets Cruise Past Timbermutts, 107-89

#8 Lady Vols Breeze Past Vanderbilt 81-53


Richard Petty: Danica Could Win “If Everyone Else Stayed Home”

Sochi Games Draw Sparse Crowds, Organizers Fill Seats With Volunteers

Pacers Rebound, Crush Nuggets 119-80

Grambling State Breaks 45-Game Division I Losing Streak

Nationals Sign Tyler Clippard To One-Year Deal, Avoid Arbitration



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Girl On The Edge

Kristen Stewart

The Marie Claire interview

Pillow Tweets (some pix NSFW)

Chris Kattan Busted For DUI

“Bachelor” Alum Shayne Lamas Hospitalized After Miscarriage

Samuel L. Jackson – I’m Not Lawrence Fishburne, You Moron!

L.A. DA Has Video Of Bieber Egging Neighbors’ Houses

Julia Roberts’ Half-Sister Found Dead In Apparent Suicide; Family Says Death Due To OD

Max George Dumps SI Model Nina Agdal

Jessica Gomes Treats Fans To A Sneak Peek At Her Lingerie Shoot

Michael Stipe Moves To Berlin

Mariah Carey Sizzles In “Jessica Rabbit” Dress

Dennis Rodman Boozing Just Three Days After Rehab Exit



FOREIGNERS
Kabul Records First Polio Case Since 2001
Holland Visit Opens Up Diplomacy For Business Amid Gossip
Iran Test-Fires Ballistic Missiles Ahead Of Nuke Talks
PRC, Taiwan Hold Talks In Nanjing; First High-Level Talks In Over 60 Years
Brazilian Cameraman Declared Braindead After Protest Injury
Former Guatemalan Commando Officer Loses US Citizenship, Gets Ten Year Sentence For Lying About 1982 Massacre
Thai Caretaker Government Says It lacks Authority To Resume Rice-Buying Scheme
Spanish Court Signs Arrest Warrant For PRC Leaders Over Tibet
South Sudan Rebels Say They’ll Boycott Latest Talks
Arrests, Online Criticism After PRC Prostitution Expose
US Considers Waiting On Security Pact Until Karzai Leaves Office



BLOGS & STUFF
Proof Positive: Obamacare Illustrated
First Street Journal: Even The Liberals Can Understand Some Economics…
American Power: Glenn Greenwald Launches “The Intercept” – A Pathetic Diversion Against Impending Criminal Charges
Doug Powers: Another Day, Another Obama Mandate Delay
Twitchy: NYC Mayor Di Blasio’s Inaugural Speech Would Make Lenin Proud
Blackfive: Book Review – The Counterfeit Agent
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Obamacare To Be Destroyed With Bang Or Whimper?
Conservatives4Palin: Happy 50th Birthday, Governor Palin!
Jammie Wearing Fools: Endangered Dem On Obama – “I Don’t Care To Have Him Campaign For Me”
Joe For America: The Ignorance And Hypocrisy Behind Oil Export Bans
JustOneMinute: Hand That Man Another Nobel!
Pat Dollard: Al Qaeda Instructor Accidentally Blows Up His Entire “How To Become A Suicide Bomber” Class
Protein Wisdom: Second Verse…Same As The First
Shot In The Dark: Chanting Points Memo – “It’s The Retirees, Stupid!”
The Jawa Report: Second Jihadi Work Accident In Somalia Kills 11
The Lonely Conservative: Obama Shafted Families Of Legal Immigrants To Amnesty Illegals Before 2012 Election
This Ain’t Hell: Prostituting Science
Megan McArdle: What AOL’s Tim Armstrong Got Right


Casey Neumiller’s Destiny’s Heir is on sale today!


Category: Live at Five

Can You Make #ObamaCare Other Than History’s Most Expensive Pile Of Bollocks?

Posted on | February 10, 2014 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

This petulant assertion would come close to funny, if it didn’t come from a guy so mired in thuggish scandals. The GOP should get the audio and run that in a fundraising loop. This November isn’t an election; it’s a pre-impeachment vote.

Category: Barack Obama
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