LIVE AT FIVE: 01.13.14

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Iran Nuke Deal Done

The reactor at Bushehr

Iran opens nuke program, agrees to limit enrichment in return for relaxed sanctions

Israel Holds State Funeral For Ariel Sharon
Tight security for former PM’s memorial service


Chaos In Iraq A Preview Of Afghanistan?
Taliban, Haqqani Network and Al-Qaeda poised to take advantage of NATO exit



POLITICS
High Court Eyes Recess Appointments

The Supreme Court

Does the President or the Senate determine whether the latter is in session?


WV Governor Says Water Tests Are Encouraging



GOP Keeps Pushing On Revoking Tax Credits For Illegals

Obama To Seek Little Change In NSA Snooping

McCain, Rubio: Gates Should Have Waited To Publish Book

Sabbaticals To Help Retain Women In Military?



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Down On Crappy US Jobs Data: NYMEX $92.43, Brent $107.13
Yen Climbs To Highest In Three Weeks As Traders Trim Bearish Bets
Retailers Looking For Tougher Data Security After Target Breach
French Oil Giant Total Joins UK Shale Hunt
BMW Fends Off Mercedes, Audi To Keep Luxury Car Lead
Banks Turn Away Cash From Legal Pot In Colorado
Analyst Predicts Windows 8 Tablets To Surge In 2014
Cisco’s Internet Of Everything Vision
Dropbox Works To Resolve Service Hiccups, Says Files Safe
Google Linking GMail To Google+ Raises Privacy Concerns
Valve Adds Support For AMD And Intel Graphics In SteamOS



SPORTS
Ground Game And Defense Send Pats To AFC Title Game

Tom Brady leads the Pats to a crushing victory

New England boots Colts from playoffs, 43-22

Chargers Rally Late But Not Enough As Broncos Hold On For Win

49ers End Panthers’ First Playoff Outing

Seahawks Ride RB Lynch To 23-15 Win Against Saints

Leonard Lifts Depleted Spurs Past Timbermutts

Sabres Snap Skid With Shootout Against Caps

Nationals Ink Strasburg To One-Year Deal, Avoid Arbitration



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Sewage Covers Red Carpet At Golden Globes

Also, a pipe burst

Fey & Poehler open again

Pamela Anderson Remarries Ex-Husband Rick Salomon

Dylan Penn Dating “Vampire Diaries” Star Steven McQueen

Ke$ha’s Mom Checks Into Rehab With Daughter

Robin Wright, Ken Foster Engaged

Quentin Tarantino’s New Script: Creating Buzz, And Another Turn For Bruce Dern?

David Cassidy Arrested Again

Katy Perry’s “PRISM” Hits 1 Million Sold



FOREIGNERS
Thai Protesters Block Roads In Bid To Shut Down Capital
France’s First Lady Hospitalized Amid Rumors Of Hollande Affair
Iraq PM Says Not Ordering Assault On Fallujah
Pope Francis Appoints 16 Cardinals, 10 From Outside Europe
Permit To Shoot Endangered Rhino Goes For $350K At Texas Auction
Ten-Hour Blaze Destroys Tibetan Tourist Town
Japan’s Self-Defense Forces Hold Drill, Simulate Island Reconquest As PRC Cranks Up Pressure In South China Sea
Mexican Vigilantes Seize Cartel Bastion



BLOGS & STUFF
American Power: Children Of The Common Core
American Thinker: Asking The Right Questions About Pot and Whose Conscience Should The Government Violate Next?
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Dennis Prager’s Interview With Camille Paglia
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Let’s Start The Pool Now
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, January 10 and Pull The Plug On Corn Ethanol Already
Jammie Wearing Fools: As Obama’s Economy Staggers Along, Queen Mooch Still Living It Up In Hawaii
JustOneMinute: Unhappy Is The Land That Breeds No Hero
Pat Dollard: Elijah Cummings Claims That Obama (Unlike Bush) Really Cares For The Troops and Brooklyn Muslim Beheads Landlord With Sword, Burns Body In Basement
Protein Wisdom: The People’s Republic Of California – “Private Property? What Private Property?”
Shot In The Dark: This Is Your Obama Recovery – A Long December Edition
The Jawa Report: Justice? White Charged With Hate Crime, Black Charged With Misdemeanor For Same Crime
The Lonely Conservative: Media Has Plenty Of Time For Christie’s Bridgegate, Not So Much For Obama’s Scandals
This Ain’t Hell: Law Enforcement’s Legit Gripe With The Latest DOJ Nominee
Megan McArdle: Bailout Could Backfire On Insurers


Shop Amazon – New Year, New You in Home & Kitchen

Egalitarianism Triumphant

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)

Exposing the falsehood of egalitarianism has been a persistent theme here. Americans have been so miseducated for so long that many people seem to think that the document promulgated by the patriot Congress at Philadelphia in 1776 was the Declaration of Equality, rather than the Declaration of Independence.

It is self-evident that universal liberty must result in vast inequality, and that a coercive program to impose equality can only be attempted at the expense of infringing liberty. Notice I said “attempted” — equality can never actually be achieved, and the radical fanatics who urge us to pursue equality (or “social justice”) as a goal are only leading doomed fools down a Road to Nowhere.

Minds hypnotized by the repetition of glittering generalities — Progress! Rights! Democracy! — cannot think clearly about facts, and find themselves incapable of refuting sophistry, a point I sought to make in a November 2008 American Spectator column:

If homosexuality is a right, and denying legal recognition to same-sex marriage is a violation of that right, then the rage of gay activists against their opponents is entirely justified. Proposition 8 does not deny tolerance, safety and freedom to gays and lesbians, whose right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is as secure in California as anywhere in the world.
Tolerance, safety and freedom are not the same as equality, however, and equality is the freight that liberals seek to smuggle into arguments via “rights talk.” Gay activists do not construe their “rights” in terms of liberty, but in terms of radical and absolute equality. They insist that same-sex relationships are identical to — entirely analogous to and fungible with — traditional marriage.
Common sense resists this assertion, perceiving something fundamentally false in the gay marriage argument. Yet it seems common-sense resistance can only be justified by resort to religious faith, through the understanding that men are “endowed by their Creator” with rights. Eliminate the Creator from discussion, and it becomes impossible to refute the activists’ indignant demand for equality.

Egalitarianism is a ravenous monster. We cannot feed it and keep it as a pet. Bob Belvedere perceives the fundamental problem:

We have to face the very uncomfortable fact that most of what we have been told and what we were taught our whole lives is simply not true.  We have spent our whole lives absorbing and processing knowledge that has been filtered through the funhouse mirror of Leftist Ideology.

Read the whole thing.

 

 


Rule 5 Sunday: Take It Off

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The Donnas. Because.

Once again it’s time to consider the wisdom of Rule 5, this week while enjoying the musical stylings of the band formerly known as the Electrocutes. Maybe not for everyone, but certainly a band to consider if you like Joan Jett, Blondie, Suzi Quatro and the Runaways. As usual, be discreet when clicking on the links, for not all of them are safe for work.

Goodstuff kicks off this week doing science with immoral loose women, and also offers New Age Cryptocurrency. IMNSHO returns with the always-welcome Kate Upton, YankeePhil contributes Jennifer Coolidge and some classic Rule 5 ladies, and Laughing Conservative checks in with Tiffany Taylor. Randy’s Roundtable offers Lisa Gleave, Fishersville Mike continues with the non-bearded stars of Duck Dynasty, and Blackmailers Don’t Shoot has some cosplay girls for your edification. Or something. Animal Magnetism comes roaring back with Rule 5 Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon. Ninety Miles From Tyranny has Morning Mistress, Hot Pick Of The Late Night, and Girls With Guns. Postaldog has Emma Watson, Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus, and Victoria V. James.

EBL’s herd of heifers this week includes Kate Beckinsale, Eliot Spitzer’s toe du jour, Chargers & 49ers cheerleaders, tax thief & cheat Melissa Viverito, and a Separated At Birth featuring the widowed Mary Crowley.

Wine Women and Politics returns with Whoah, Baby!, the Babe of the Day, TGIF Hotties, Red Hot Lips, Red Hot Shoes, Red Sole Shoes, and Hot In Black.

A View From The Beach adds Let’s See More Seymours, The Direct TV Genie, Warm Weather Is Annoying, Two Million!, Shark Riders, Obamacare Schadenfreude In Single Digits, Actor Fired For Unscripted Groping, The Original Spear Chucker? (has cave girl content), Turn About Is Fair Play, and Cheerleading For Obamacare Schadenfreude.

Soylent Siberia has your morning coffee creamer, Monday Motivationer Carlie, Spassfabrik, Overnighty Angela, Humpday Hawtness Amanda, Falconsword Fursday Filigree, Evening Awesome Angela, Corset Kibble, TGIF Friday Shoes, Overnighty, and Weekender Lily.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Lindsay Duke, his vintage babe is Elyse Knox (a/k/a Mark Harmon’s mom), there’s Sex In Advertising, and the obligatory 49ers cheerleader. Dustbury this week suggests Dakota Fanning and Amanda Peet.

The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes this week include Paris Nicole, Rina Rukawa, Antonia Toya-Carter, Charlotte Springer, Allison Baver, Kristina Wagner, Julia Ormond, Christine Nguyen, Christine Taylor, Yurika Tachibana, and Rachelle Leah. Also, Ebony Beauty.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline for submitting links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox for next week’s Rule 5 roundup is Saturday, January 18.


She Craved the Taste of Boy Flesh

Alicia Gray performed oral sex on 14-year-old boy.

Degenerate perversion in Alabama:

A former Alabama high school teacher who was married, pleaded guilty to having sex with a student, and has been sentenced to immediately serve jail time as well as surrender her teaching certificate.
Alicia Gray, 28, accepted a plea deal by prosecutors as she was convicted of engaging in a sexual act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student under 19 years old.
Gray was sentenced to serve six months behind bars with five years of probation.

“Deviant sexual intercourse”? An affidavit, reported when Gray was arrested last year, has since been sealed by court order, but the Internet is forever and the sordid details are still out there:

Charging documents obtained by Local 15 news describe in graphic detail what Mobile County Sheriff’s investigators said was a sexual affair between Mary G. Montgomery High School math teacher Alicia Gray and her 14 year old student. The relationship, Mobile County Cpl. Terri Hall wrote, started around New Year’s Day 2013 with inappropriate contact between the student, whose name was redacted because he is a minor, and Gray started on Facebook using cellphones and computers.
The contact then became physical, the records show, quoting the teen as having “inappropriate physical contact which consisted of kissing and hugging during and after school hours while at Mary G. Montgomery High School.” Hall also claimed the boy told investigators his relationship with Gray “intensified” resulting in an exchange of oral sex between the two taking place, “near or at the victim’s residence.” . . .
[T]he boy also told investigators Gray “took several naked pictures and transmitted those pictures to one another via their cell phones through Snap Chat application.”

In linking last night’s round-up of recent teacher sex news, Instapundit called attention to Gray’s case and remarked:

Obviously, we need to end mandatory celibacy and let high school teachers marry.

This sarcastic reference to the Catholic priest scandal — for such were the arguments of “reformers” in that context — also points out the falsehood of one common reaction to teacher sex crimes.

Ever since the Debra LaFave case, some people have marveled at instances of female teachers arrested for molesting teenage boys: “But she’s good-looking — why can’t she get a man?”

The assumption is that sexual desperation is the motive for these crimes, when in fact, it’s a matter of sexual preference:  Sure, they can get men, but they don’t want men — they want boys.

Abnormal? Certainly. Uncommon? Not exactly.

Police say Brianne Altice admitted sex with boy, 16.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH:

A Davis High School English teacher was charged [Dec. 17] with three counts of first-degree felony rape stemming from her alleged sexual relations with a then-16-year-old male student.
In 2nd District Court documents, 34-year-old Brianne Land Altice is accused of having had sexual intercourse with the boy, now 17, on at least three occasions between January and September of this year.
Prosecutors say the teacher acknowledged to investigators that she had engaged in sex with the boy on two of the three occasions in which she has been charged.
An earlier probable cause statement, filed with the Davis County Jail after Altice was arrested at her South Weber home in late October, alleged that one of the trysts occurred in a Kaysville park.

Police say Quotaysha Jones had sex with a 16-year-old boy.

PORT ST. LUCIE, FLORIDA:

The 29-year-old Port St. Lucie elementary school teacher accused of having sex with a teenage boy remained in the St. Lucie County jail . . .
Quotaysha Jones, a fifth grade Mariposa Elementary teacher, was arrested [Dec. 20] after the end of the school day on a felony sexual assault-related charge, according to sheriff’s officials. . . .
The boy, now 17, told detectives he and Jones were having sex for about a year after he turned 16 and had sex four to six times during that period, according to the report.

Kathryn Camille Murray had sex with a 15-year-old boy.

HOUSTON, TEXAS:

The former Memorial Middle School teacher who had sex with a 15-year-old student has pleaded guilty to the charges against her.
Kathryn Camille Murray pleaded guilty to one count of improper relations with a student and one count of sexual assault of a child. Two other counts against Murray were dropped.
Murray was charged in February 2012 after investigators learned of her relationship with a teen she was supposed to be tutoring. She had multiple sexual encounters with the boy.
Investigators said Murray, who was 29 years old, had sex with the boy at his home on February 11, 2012, while his parents were away. She also had sex with him at a hotel on the night of a school dance and in her classroom on two separate occasions.
The former eighth grade teacher . . . taught at Memorial Middle for three years as a Language Arts teacher. . . .
“Campus and District administration took immediate and appropriate action after an initial report was made by a faculty member to the school principal on Feb. 13. Mrs. Murray was removed from the classroom and the campus on the same day,” the district said in a released statement.
But after the allegations surfaced and Murray lost her job, she still continued to have contact with the boy after a judge strictly forbade it, landing herself in more trouble.
In January 2013, Murray was charged with harboring a runaway when police found the boy with her at her father’s home. They caught the boy, who was 16 at the time, trying to leave out the back door.

Rachel Santoro is accused of sex with 15-year-old boy.

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK:

A teacher has been accused of having sex with a boy she tutored in her home.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office charged Rachel Santora, 31, of Brooklawn Drive, Brighton, with second degree criminal sex act, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.
Santora is accused of engaging in sex acts with a 15-year-old male student over the summer of 2013 while she was employed as a teacher with the Rush-Henrietta School District.

Megan Garland molested two teenage boys.

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN:

A former teacher at Messmer High School was sentenced [Jan. 3] to four years in prison for having sexual contact with two students.
Megan Garland, 29, of Waukesha pleaded no contest in October to charges of child enticement and sexual assault by school staff, both felonies. She had been set for trial on two counts of second-degree sexual assault, involving boys ages 14 and 15. She will spend six years under supervision after her release from prison.
Her father and attorney said Garland has long suffered from depression and anxiety, and has been in treatment and on medication since the arrest that ended her teaching career in its first year. . . .
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner adopted the high end of the sentencing range recommended by Assistant District Attorney Erin Karshen, who said Garland groomed her victims with rides, snacks, flirting and sexualized banter . . .
Karshen said Garland was also jealous and vindictive, once touching one of the boys in a hallway to interrupt his conversation with a girl. Another time, when the boys were resisting or ignoring her, Garland lied to a basketball coach about the boys’ behavior to get them suspended from the team, Karshen said.
In a lengthy prepared statement to Wagner, the older boy’s mother . . . said Garland “meticulously planned” the acts to “indulge her sick fantasy.”
Garland was arrested after she was caught performing a sex act on a 14-year-old male student May 23 in the parking lot of Destiny Church and School in Milwaukee. Prosecutors later added a second charge, that she groped a 15-year-old male Messmer student while giving him a ride in her car earlier that month and had him touch her sexually.

Obviously, these mentally disturbed freaks are in need of therapy. Perhaps the school psychologist could help them?

Megan Snipes is accused of sex with a 16-year-old boy.

BEAUFORT, SOUTH CAROLINA:

A high school psychologist is accused of engaging in sexual acts with a 16-year-old pupil.
Authorities in South Carolina charged Megan Michelle Snipes, 29, with sexual battery of a student, according to WCBD.
Police say that Snipes, who works as psychologist for the Beaufort County School District, was discovered to have shared lewd text messages with a male student under her treatment. . . .
Investigators say that after interviewing the suspect and alleged victim, they found that that Snipes allegedly engaged in a sexual act with the victim on Oct. 18.
Police arrested Snipes [Dec. 20].
Snipes has been placed on administrative leave pending a full investigation, according to the Beaufort Gazette.

All seven of these cases made headlines in the past month, and if we were to extrapolate this figure over the course of a year, we could estimate that at least 80 female teachers are charged with sex crimes annually in the United States. Perversion is rampant and we may be in the midst of a complete societal breakdown.

Remember this, the next time you see a poll asking whether the country is “on the right track” or heading in “the wrong direction.”

 

FMJRA 2.0: Frisby

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Al Gore and the Big Climate Lie

Will De Blasio Get Away With This?

HELP! #SaveNYCHorseCarriages Campaign Fights Mayor to Save Jobs

Rule 5 Sunday: New Year’s Extended Hangover Relief Edition

Obama Still Hasn’t Responded to Republican Offer to Discuss Health Care

De Blasio Plans to Destroy New York City: ‘We Won’t Wait. We’ll Do It Now.’

Concealed Carry (IYKWIMAITYD)

Obama’s IRS Scandal Cover-Up

Florida: The Crazy State

LIVE AT FIVE: 01.06.14

Sociopathic Sadist Bill Schmalfeldt Vows: ‘One Way or Another, They Will Pay’

Portrait of a Stalker Troll: @Repsac3, Also Known as Walter James Casper III

God and Meth at Yale

Feminists Accused of ‘Transphobia’: Competitive Victimhood Derby

What The Flu-Shot Is A “Federal Dollar”?

Everybody Hates Cathy Brennan: Troll Under the Bridge on the Crazyville Road

This Was Probably Predictable

Bill Schmalfeldt’s Clown Show, and a Certain Dog That Has Not Barked

It Had to Be Written

‘They Are Not Allowed to Fail’

Democrats and the Murder Vote

Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt Insinuates Corruption in Carroll County

Rocky Horror State University

It Is Not Often That I Greet A New Federal Reserve Chair. . .

FMJRA 2.0: Once More Into The Tax Mines

In The Mailbox, 01.07.14

In Which @AmandaHess Locates the Problem of Online Harassment

LIVE AT FIVESEVEN: 01.08.14

‘Assange Told Him He Didn’t Care How the Information Was Obtained’

#Occupy Suckers: De Blasio’s Corrupt Connections to Wall Street Exposed

‘I Slacked Off in 2013’

The Predictable Karma of #Shutuppery: Will Democrat Sue Jeanne Bonds?

Oklahoma Police: Meth Mom Molested Her Kids While People Paid to Watch

In The Mailbox, 01.09.14

‘Love,’ Celebrity Style

Unspeakable Depravity: Woman Helped Her Husband Rape 15-Year-Old Girl

LIVE AT FIVE: 01.10.14

The @Maddow Method: MSNBC’s Televised Left-Wing Blog Show

Elegant Reporting in Appalachia

Thank You, Lena Dunham

Radical Despair

Joblessness at Record Levels; So Why Does @BDayspring Still Have a Job?

Happy Birthday to My Sexy Wife

Top linkers for the week:

  1. Rick’s Rants (40)
  2. Dead Republican Party (39)
  3. Batshit Crazy News (17)
  4. Political Rift (15)
  5. Regular Right Guy (12)
  6. A View From The Beach (8)
  7. Blackmailers Don’t Shoot (6)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links for next week’s FMJRA is noon on Saturday, January 18.


‘Idiocy Is Not a Zero-Sum Game’

Alabama crazy-blogger Roger Shuler.

The title quote is Popehat blogger Ken White’s assessment of the Roger Shuler case as quoted in the New York Times:

For over six years, Roger Shuler has hounded figures of the state legal and political establishment on his blog, Legal Schnauzer, a hothouse of furious but often fuzzily sourced allegations of deep corruption and wide-ranging conspiracy. Some of these allegations he has tested in court, having sued his neighbor, his neighbor’s lawyer, his former employer, the Police Department, the Sheriff’s Department, the Alabama State Bar and two county circuit judges, among others. Mostly, he has lost.
But even those who longed for his muzzling, and there are many, did not see it coming like this: with Mr. Shuler sitting in jail indefinitely, and now on the list of imprisoned journalists worldwide kept by the Committee to Protect Journalists. There, in the company of jailed reporters in China, Iran and Egypt, is Mr. Shuler, the only person on the list in the Western Hemisphere.
A former sports reporter and a former employee in a university’s publications department, Mr. Shuler, 57, was arrested in late October on a contempt charge in connection with a defamation lawsuit filed by the son of a former governor. The circumstances surrounding that arrest, including a judge’s order that many legal experts described as unconstitutional and behavior by Mr. Shuler that some of the same experts described as self-defeating posturing, have made for an exceptionally messy test of constitutional law.
“You’ve got a situation where sometimes there’s no good guys,” said Ken White, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who writes about and practices First Amendment law.

You can read the whole thing. The real point — the key fact, which New York Times reporter Campbell Robertson can’t state in so many words — is that Roger Shuler is nuts. He is deluded, deranged and demented. Roger Shuler is bonkers, wacko, zany, off his rocker, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Donald Douglas at American Power correctly identifies Roger Shuler as an “ax-grinding kook.” The ax-grinder — a person whose “politics” is in fact the manifestation of a deeply personal obsession — has in recent years become a familiar type of lunatic, and the problem is that our culture encourages such pseudo-politics.

What else is feminism, really, except the collective ax-grinding of digruntled female misfits? The insane controversy between radical feminists and transgender activists demonstrates the natural consequence of indulging the more extreme forms of identity politics. And if you start investigating the biographies of fringe activists in such movements, you will find no shortage of evidence of mental illness.

Roger Shuler is a heterosexual white male who claimed he was the victim of employment “discrimination” at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. This is what you might call a symptom.

“Shuler has not shown that any clearly established right has been violated. His only alleged evidence is a recorded phone call that he says supports the notion that he was terminated because of the political content of his blog. However, Shuler’s own transcript of the phone call shows only that his time spent researching content for his blog during working hours was a factor — and an ‘insignificant’ one, at that — in his termination. There is no evidence to suggest that the political content of his blog was a factor at all. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the UAB defendants on this claim.”
— 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, July 3, 2012

It might have been helpful if the 11th Circuit had added: “By the way, you’re crazy. Seek professional help, you nutjob.”

The decisive defeat of Shuler’s claim against UAB was no doubt a tremendous disappointment to him. Shuler’s habit of litigating pro se, acting as his own attorney, was evidence of an unrealistic confidence in his own abilities. He clearly believed he would prevail, and instead he abjectly failed. Are we surprised, then, that the “fuzzily sourced allegations” that led to Shuler being sued for defamation seem to have begun in mid-2012?

His “Legal Schnauzer” blog had trafficked in conspiracy theories and gossip-mongering for years, but in 2012, Shuler started cranking out the most absurd sort of defamatory craziness, publishing a letter by notorious conspiracy theorist Jill Simpson claiming that Karl Rove was sexually involved with Ali Akbar. I have speculated that this absurd falsehood originated with Neal Rauhauser, but wherever it came from, it was Shuler who foolishly decided to run with it — and both Rove and Akbar wisely ignored it. Evidently misinterpreting tactful silence as a license to engage in further defamation, Shuler then embarked on a course of publishing heinous smears for which he never offered any real evidence. Shuler’s reaction to being sued for defamation was as crazy as you might expect:

The Shulers refused to answer the door when officials came to serve court papers, stating their suspicions in blog posts that the visits were part of an “intimidation and harassment campaign” stemming from the reporting on another topic.
One afternoon as the Shulers drove to the local library, where Mr. Shuler had been writing his blog since they could no longer pay for their Internet connection, a member of the Sheriff’s Department pulled them over, saying they had run a stop sign. The officer then served them the papers, which the Shulers refused to accept, contending that service under such a pretext was improper.
“We were both throwing the papers out of the windows as we were driving off,” Ms. Shuler said in an interview.
The Shulers missed a hearing the next day, and the restraining order was superseded by a similarly worded preliminary injunction, which some free-speech advocates saw as a clear violation of Mr. Shuler’s First Amendment rights. . . .
The National Bloggers Club, a group led by the Republican activist Ali Akbar, who has also threatened to sue Mr. Shuler for defamation, released a statement condemning Mr. Shuler’s “rumormonger cyberbullying” but also criticizing the injunction as creating a potential chilling effect on blogging.

 On the one hand, the injunction appears to be unconstitutional. On the other hand, Roger Shuler is crazy. How do you deal with such an irresponsible kook, who goes to the library to blog his reckless nonsense when he can no longer afford an Internet hookup?

Crazy people have rights, but sane people have rights, too.

Somehow, sooner or later, these lunatics must be stopped.

 

BomberSuesBloggers.com




 


Florida Atrocity: Girls Beat Teen, Held Her Down as She Was Raped on Video

Left to right: Erica Avery, 16; Jayvon Woolfork, 19; Patricia Montes, 15.

Having recently dubbed Florida the “Crazy State,” I’m seldom surprised by reports of criminal degeneracy and perverse madness there, but the raw savagery in this case is astonishing:

A 16-year-old girl was allegedly beaten by other girls before being held down to be raped in a horrifying attack that was filmed on a cellphone, it was revealed today.
Patricia Montes, 15, and 16-year-old Erica Avery are accused of punching, kicking and pepper-spraying the girl before holding her down to be raped by Jayvon Woolfork, 19, police said.
The barbaric attack was filmed on a cell phone by Lanel Singleton, 18, and shows the girl writhing half naked and weeping in the yard of a home in Hollywood, Florida while her attackers leer over her.
Along with 17-year-old Dwight Henry, the alleged rape gang have all been charged in the attack on November 1 last year.
The sickening clips, shown by CBS Miami for the first time today, shows the girls viciously beating the girl while the men watch. . . .
Inside the home, the alleged attackers dragged the victim into a room and pinned her down while Woolfork assaulted her.
The victim is later allowed to leave but not before one of her female attackers spits on her. She managed to flag down a car and make it to her home where she fell unconscious and was taken to hospital. She spent several days in hospital with broken bones in her face, swelling and being unable to see.
The victim told police that she was attacked after smoking marijuana and drinking beer with people she believed to be her friends, including one girl who had been her best friend since kindergarten.
Patricia Montes, 15, and Erica Avery, 16, are charged with two counts each of felony armed sexual assault and kidnapping. Both have been charged as adults.
Henry, 17, of Hollywood; Lanel Singleton, 18, of North Miami; and Woolfork, 19, all face charges of capital felony sexual assault and kidnapping.

These creepy kids make Kaitlyn Hunt seem nice by comparison.

 

In Which @NYTimeskrugman Exposes His Own Structural Stupidity

Yesterday I praised Kevin D. Williamson’s elegant account of poverty in Appalachia, but of course the liberal know-it-all Paul Krugman couldn’t resist adding his two cents of Nobel Prize ignorance:

My take on Williamson’s report . . . is that it basically says that William Julius Wilson was right. Wilson famously argued that the social troubles of urban blacks emerged, not because there was something inherently wrong with their culture, but because job opportunities in inner cities dried up. Sure enough, when the God-fearing (and definitely white) people of Appalachia face a loss of employment opportunity, their region turns into what Williamson calls the Great White Ghetto.
And this in turn says that the problem isn’t that we’re becoming a nation of takers; it’s the fact that we’re becoming a nation that doesn’t offer enough economic opportunity to the bottom half, or maybe even the bottom 80 percent, of its citizens.

Idiot. What is overlooked in Krugman’s reading of both Wilson and Williamson is this: Welfare tends to act as a glue that adheres recipients to the economic floor, in part because it encourages them to remain in areas after economic decline takes hold.

Historically, poor people have left impoverished areas to seek out jobs and opportunity elsewhere. Why leave home to seek opportunity, if you can collect a check for staying put and doing nothing?

The main problem with the welfare-dependent poor of Owsley County, Kentucky, is that they’re still in Owsley County, Kentucky. And the reason they’re there is because welfare pays them to stay there. Otherwise, they’d go somewhere else and find work.

This is why the distinction between cyclical unemployment and structural unemployment matters. If you’re a construction worker in Florida, for example, the recent recession has been terrible, but there is every reason to expect that eventually the housing market will recover, and there will be more work. So if you go on unemployment for a few months or accept Medicaid and food stamps, this is not necessarily the beginning of a cycle of permanent dependency.

On the other hand, if you’re a teenage girl in Owsley County, Kentucky, and you go on “the draw” after you get pregnant, it’s likely you’ll never get out of poverty, because there is just no prospect of economic growth in your community.

Kevin Williamson has a few choice words for Krugman, none of which are “fuck you.” But if you really want to understand this issue, ignore Krugman, and pay attention to the immortal Sam Kinison:

You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don’t send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, “You know, we’ve been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn’t BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it’s gonna be 100 years from now? IT’S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don’t live in them, assholes!”

Really, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Ethiopia, Detroit or Kentucky. If you’re someplace where the economy sucks, don’t go on welfare. Get the hell out of there and go where the jobs are.