The Other McCain

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

Obama to #SouthSudan: Good Luck

Posted on | December 22, 2013 | 14 Comments

If you expected any determined U.S. action to end this civil war, my condolences on your Nobel Peace Prize disappointment:

“This conflict can only be resolved peacefully through negotiations. Any effort to seize power through the use of military force will result in the end of longstanding support from the United States and the international community.”

This is just noise, which any rebel leader or armed tribal mob will scornfully ignore, if they even bother to notice because, contrary to the president’s assertion, conflicts often are revolved violently through the use of military force, and without regard to a lot of diplomatic chatter from “the international community.” The man with a gun in his hand generally only stops fighting when confronted with superior force, and there is nothing in Obama’s statement that indicates any effort by the U.S. in that direction.

So we’re sitting this one out, I guess. Turning our attention away from irrelevant noise, let’s talk about what matters, i.e., the war:

Former South Sudan Vice-President Riek Machar has said rebel troops have captured the key oil-producing state of Unity and control much of the country.
Mr Machar also confirmed to the BBC that the forces fighting the government were under his command.
The country has been in turmoil since President Salva Kiir accused Mr Machar a week ago of attempting a coup. . . .

(Which, of course, he was.)

Mr Machar, whose claim to control Unity could not be independently verified, told the BBC that a senior military commander, Gen James Koang, had gone over to the rebels earlier in the week.
However, government forces say Gen Koang defected alone and did not take any troops with him.
Unity, a state on the border with Sudan, produces much of South Sudan’s oil, which accounts for more than 95% of the country’s economy.
Mr Machar added that he was prepared to negotiate with the government if politicians arrested this week were released and transferred to a neutral country such as Ethiopia.
Mr Kiir also agreed to negotiations after meeting African mediators on Friday.
But government troops are currently trying to retake Bor, in one of the most volatile regions in the country.
Troops backed by helicopter gunships were advancing on the town, army spokesman Philip Aguer told AFP news agency.

More talk, talk, talk:

The African Union called on Saturday for an immediate ceasefire in South Sudan, where U.N. staff say hundreds of people have been killed in nearly a week of fighting.
In a statement, it described the killing of U.N. peacekeepers and civilians at a U.N. camp as a war crime.
Fighting that began on Sunday in the capital Juba has swiftly spread to other parts of the country, fuelled by ethnic divisions between the main Nuer and Dinka tribal groups.
The African Union said in a statement that its chairwoman, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma “calls for an immediate humanitarian truce for the Christmas season, as a sign of a commitment by all concerned to the well-being of the people of South Sudan”.

The New York Times provides background:

Like many conflicts in this tenuous nation, the fighting has taken on an ethnic dimension, human rights workers say. Mr. Machar, the former vice president removed over the summer when Mr. Kiir summarily dismissed his entire cabinet, is a Nuer. The president belongs to the majority Dinka ethnic group.
In the capital, South Sudanese forces have targeted members of the Nuer ethnic group, killing many and detaining others, including soldiers, lawmakers and students, rights workers and refuge seekers say.
But outside the capital, in Jonglei State, the reverse has occurred as well, with Nuer militiamen targeting Dinka, descending on United Nations compounds where thousands of civilians have fled for safety and carrying out attacks on oil facilities that have resulted in what the Security Council called “the heavy loss of life” among workers.
“We are deeply concerned that ethnically based attacks on all sides will lead to revenge attacks and more violence,” Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Other observers have said that politics, not ethnicity, are driving the conflict.
“It is a power struggle,” said Zacharia Diing Akol, an analyst at the Sudd Institute in Juba. “Ethnicity is an afterthought.”

UPDATE: A young Heritage staffer works weekend:

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 

Category: Barack Obama, Sudan

Fred Reed Encounters Maureen Dowd; Demolition Ensues

Posted on | December 21, 2013 | 27 Comments

by Smitty

Reed mostly predates the blogging phenomenon. While this is not National Offend a Feminist Week, I think Stacy will permit our loyal readers a little taste of a first-rate spleen dump (emphasis mine):

Listen, Corn Flower. Let’s think over this business of obsolete men. Reflect. You live in New York, in which every building was designed and built by men. You perhaps use the subway, designed, built, and maintained by men. You travel at in a car, invented, designed, and built by men—a vehicle that you don’t understand (what is a cam lobe?) and couldn’t maintain (have you ever changed a tire? Could you even find the tires?), and you do this on roads designed, built, and maintained by men. You fly in aircraft designed, built, and maintained by men, which you do not understand (what, Moon Pie, is a high-bypass turbofan?)

In short, as you run from convention to convention, peeing on hydrants, you depend utterly on men to keep you fed (via tractors designed by men, guided by GPS invented, designed, and launched by men, on farms run by men), and comfy (air conditioning invented…but need I repeat myself?)

I do not want to be unjust. It is not in my nature. While men may be obsolete (unless you want to eat) I cannot say, Apple Cheeks, that feminists are obsolete. They are not. Obsoleteness implies having passed through a period of usefulness.

I do get tired of your hissing and fizzing about the noble sex to which I belong. Mercy, I cry. It is not my fault that Michael Douglas didn’t marry you. He didn’t marry me either, but I don’t hate men because of it. (In fact I am grateful to him, and doubtless he to me).

Read the whole righteous thing.

Category: Blogging, National Offend a Feminist Week

FMJRA 2.0: Painkiller

Posted on | December 21, 2013 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Family Values as a Math Problem

Rule 5 Monday

Is Phil Robertson Wrong?

Homophobia: Pathology or Tautology?

The #PajamaBoy Thing, Also: Bizarre Holiday Ad Targets Gays for ObamaCare

MSNBC OMFG: @ChrisLHayes and Guest @RichardKimNYC Talk About Butt Sex

You Stay Classy, LGF

Baseball Plans to Ban … Baseball?

America-Hating Commie Punk Wanted to Kill Librarian, Had Molotov Cocktails

18-Year-Old Beats, Rapes 85-Year-Old Nun Who Was ‘Advocate of Nonviolence’

Brett Kimberlin’s Conspiracy Theory and Other Recent Legal Proceedings

This Is Not News: Carl Herold and His ‘Domestic Partner’ Charles Dunnavant

LIVE AT FIVE: 12.19.13

World’s Youngest Blogger: Of Course #IStandWithPhil. Because #Obvious

If @PiersMorgan Hates America So Much, Why Won’t He Just Leave the Country?

Homegrown Jihadi Caught in Bomb Plot; GOP-Hating Kid Is School Shooter

‘Emerging Awareness’ Update: Remember the Texas Polygamy Teen Sex Cult?

Why Are Huffington Post’s ‘Gay Voices’ Columnists Fixated on Underage Sex?

Textbook by Bill Ayers ‘Required Reading’ for Freshmen at Marquette University

Obama’s Millionaire ‘Green’ Ambassador to Finland Mocks Critics in Holiday Card

FMJRA 2.0: Day Late & A Dollar Short

Thanks to the Reader Who Bought the LG Electronics 32-Inch LED TV from Amazon

The Atheist Creep Lawrence Krauss

A ‘Gay App’ for 12-Year-Olds, and Hey, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Patch: AOL’s Expensive Failure

In The Mailbox: 12.16.13

Russia Reverting to Totalitarianism?

EPA Climate-Change Expert Admits ‘Historic’ Fraud for $900,000

Reann Murphy, 9, Murdered in Ohio, Body Found Dumped in Trash Bin UPDATE: ‘Diminished Mental Capacity’

Alabama Tea Party Leader Compares ObamaCare to ‘Lord of the Rings’

LIVE AT FIVE: 12.17.13

‘Nobody Matters Less to Our Society Than Young Black Women. Nobody.’

It’s a @CharlieSheen Christmas, Bitch!

‘We’re Still Kinda Stunned’

Obama: Less Popular Than Syphilis

Haters Gonna Hate, Deniers Gonna Deny

LIVE AT FIVE: 12.18.13

Sen. McCain And Intellectual Integrity: Let His Carcass Caucus With Democrats

Hillary Clinton: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

Harvard Genius Caught in Stupid Hoax

After ObamaCare

Today’s Ray Of Hope

Thanks to the Reader Who Bought ‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’ From Our Amazon Links!

Anarchy in Africa: U.S., U.K. Evacuate as South Sudan Spirals Out of Control UPDATE: Rebels Hit U.N. Mission

Quick #SouthSudan Update

#SouthSudan Update: Obama Urges Calm, Reconciliation, Sends Small U.S. Force

A Brett Kimberlin Christmas: Unexpected Gifts From My Fellow Defendants

Knife-Wielding Rape Suspect Says the Voices in His Head Were Rather Specific

Normally, I Don’t Support the Animal Rights Movement, However…

In The Mailbox: 12.20.13

Top linkers this week:

  1. Rick’s Rants (46)
  2. Batshit Crazy News (46, includes 14 EBL links)
  3. Dead Citizens Rights Society (34, includes 1 DeRP link)
  4. Regular Right Guy (16)
  5. A View From The Beach (7)
  6. Zion’s Trumpet (6)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! In order to save my wrists for the Extremely Important Rule 5 post, I am deprecating all links to a particular post from the same blog after the first. So, for example, you can link multiple posts here in the same post on your blog, and those are all good. However, doing a string of posts on your blog that all link the same post here at The Other McCain – even if it is the Rule 5 Sunday post – means that after the first one, the rest of the links won’t be counted in the weekly standings. Deadline to submit links for next week’s FMJRA is noon on Saturday, December 28.


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Category: FMJRA Award

In Which @AceOfSpadesHQ Expresses an Unexpected Distaste for Blood

Posted on | December 21, 2013 | 50 Comments

Just in case you missed The Big Thing on Twitter, a P.R. person named Justine Sacco was about to depart for a holiday trip when she decided to share with her 100 or so Twitter followers this joke:

“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS.
Just kidding. I’m white!”

This is, as Ace of Spades pointed out, a familiar sort of ironic liberal hipster humor: Sacco was mocking white privilege, get it?

But then a funny thing happened, and by “funny,” of course I mean, sadistically cruel. About three hours later, Andrew Kaczynski of Buzzfeed jumped on Sacco with this comment:

Kaczynski has more than 100,000 followers, and whatever controversy had previously attended Sacco’s joke turned into an uncontrollable firestorm. Then, evidently, BuzzFeed assigned a reporter to “report” on the conflagration that BuzzFeed had itself done so much to ignite. I mean, when you call something “the worst tweet of all of time” . . .

Without regard to the tastefulness of Sacco’s joke — which was, as I say, a liberal kind of joke — since when did “Let’s Get Somebody Fired for Christmas” become a popular sport?

Of course, there are those who have made the obvious and ironic point that Sacco works in the field of public relations and therefore should have known better than to go “edgy” with her online humor, but on the other hand, I kinda noticed Kaczynski is enthusiastic about “marriage equality,” and maybe this was about political ax-grinding: “How dare you joke about AIDS, you hetero woman!”

Maybe? Just throwing that out there, because we have been reminded in recent days that some varieties of special pleading are treated as a universal crusade for Social Justice: It’s not enough that gay people should be zealous for gay rights. Everyone must as zealous as GLAAD, or else you risk a diagnosis of homophobia.

Bullshit.

Anyway, for all I know, Andrew Kaczynski’s straight, but I’m sick of the expectation that We’re All Down for the Gay Agenda Now.

The larger point that Ace was making is, whence this unseemly gusto for destroying random nobodies on the Internet? And I’m sure maybe you think you catch a whiff of hypocrisy, because some of us don’t mind throwing a few elbows online.

Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey, anyone?

But there was a rationale there. Ms. Passey had posted a preposterously egotistical self-description that began:

I am a very high-quality woman. I know that sounds arrogant, but let’s consider the facts . . .

That was 2006 and Ace’s reaction is still funny as hell today, which is an important point, the difference between:

  1. Making fun of somebody; and
  2. Trying to get somebody fired from their job.

And there was also the matter of equivalence: Ms. Passey was a blogger and Ace is a blogger, so this was one blogger using his own blog to criticize another blogger whereas by contrast, Andrew Kaczynski was wielding the BuzzFeed flamethrower against a lady with 100 Twitter followers because she made a dumb joke.

Twelve words! A joke on Twitter and, hey, let’s get her fired.

Have I been wantonly cruel to people online? Sure, but I don’t think I’ve ever barbecued somebody merely for 12 words on Twitter.

Most of my digital hate crimes have been aimed at feminists, which is so much fun because they never really expect it. By which I mean that my typical target is a 20-something Women’s Studies major who only recently escaped the campus cocoon and is employed in a workplace where the tenets of feminist ideology are just taken for granted. Kill babies because patriarchy!

Also (and maybe I’m the only one who’s noticed this) feminists are accustomed to having their cake and eating it, too. On the one hand, women are entirely equal to men in every way, but on the other hand, how dare you say mean things to a girl?

Feminism is not only a dangerous and misguided ideology, it’s also a scam, a hustle, a racket — a dishonest attempt to gain personal advantage by disguising selfishness as humanitarian philanthropy: Generating quota hires and professional sinecures for women from which they can never be fired, no matter how incompetent they are, because that would be sexist discrimination. And don’t you even dare talk back to these wicked little entitled monsters.

Heads, she wins. Tails, you’re a brutal misogynist.

When people begin declaring that it is immoral to disagree with them — which is what feminists mean when they hurl the epithet “sexist” at their critics — excuse me for thinking I hear, in the distance, the sound of hobnailed boots marching on broken glass.

Totalitarians nowadays speak the language of “fairness,” and these distaff brownshirts can expect no courtesy from me.

Sonny Bunch at Free Beacon rounded up some of the more bloodthirsty remarks aimed at Justine Sacco, none of which I endorse, unless someone could produce evidence that Justine Sacco supports Planned Parenthood, in which case, to hell with her — she should have her eyes jabbed out with rusty knives and rabid jackals should feast upon her bloated festering corpse.

Hahaha, just kidding — satire!

UPDATE: John Nolte at Breitbart:

Sacco is a young, professional, New York woman. Chances are about 99.9% that she’s a BuzzFeed-loving, Obama-voting, MSNBC addict.
Which leads to the most important question…
Why Sacco?
Why did BuzzFeed and others gin up a journalistic assassination squad to hit some nobody named Justine Sacco? . . .
Is this group now so addicted to the taste of bloody scalps that no one is safe — that any obscure citizen with only 174 Twitter followers can have their social media door broken into and lives ruined by the likes of BuzzFeed: Speech Detectives?
Or maybe it is something else.

It could be pointed out that Sacco was employed by IAC, the same company that owns The Daily Beast, which is sort of generally a competitor to BuzzFeed, which would provide an incentive. Or maybe somebody at BuzzFeed just hated Sacco for personal reasons. On the other hand, it may have been entirely random.

 


Category: Ace of Spades

Bill Whittle Meets Black Sabbath

Posted on | December 21, 2013 | 16 Comments

by Smitty

Bill Whittle retains his restrained pose here during The End of the Beginning:
. . .which title is the same as the opening cut for the latest Black Sabbath record:

Is this the end of the beginning?
Or the beginning of the end?
Losing control or are you winning?
Is your life real or just pretend?

Reanimation of the sequence
Rewind the future to the past.
To find the source of the solution;
The system has to be recast.

The demolition of the entire American economy seems to be the goal of this Administration. What makes Black Sabbath an especially useful choice for a soundtrack is the sort of slow, plodding, methodical swath of acoustic destruction they bring.

“Methodical swath” is precisely how I’d characterize what Obama has achieved: he has blown money in the multi-trillion dollar range, and there has been seemingly nothing that could stop him. No amount of protest, parliamentary effort, elections, history, math, or common sense can do more than delay President Shiv-a Country.

It’s so bad, we have the spectacle of Paul Ryan serving up a total steamer of a budget with a toss of his head and a “Well, best we could do” attitude. Has there ever, ONCE, been a historical case of a spending cut occurring as planned in a future year? Because it’s as though Ryan is on board with “If you like your spending cut, you can keep your spending cut,” where ‘keep’ means ‘just keep pushing that noise into the future’.

What’s desperately needed is the leadership and the will to say “Enough” and articulate reform platform that says “The collapse has gone on for long enough; here is a new course.”

Category: Barack Obama, PJTV

#SouthSudan 3 U.S. Troops Wounded as Rebels Fire on Transport Plane UPDATE: Four U.S. Casualties; Rebels Claim Overthrow of Oil Region Capital

Posted on | December 21, 2013 | 27 Comments

Damn. Just . . . damn.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Rebel fire hit two U.S. military aircraft responding to the outbreak in violence in South Sudan on Saturday, wounding three U.S. service members and heavily damaging at least one of the aircraft, officials said. …
The U.S. military aircraft were heading to Bor, the capital of the state of Jonglei and scene of some of the nation’s worst violence over the last week. One American service member was reported to be in critical condition. Officials said after the aircraft took incoming fire, they turned around and headed to Kampala, Uganda. From there the service members were flown on to Nairobi, Kenya for medical treatment, the officials said. . . .
It was not immediately known what the U.S. aircraft were doing in Bor. One official said it appeared the aircraft were Ospreys, the type of aircraft that can fly like a helicopter and a plane.
Officials at the U.S. military’s Africa Command did not immediately answer phone calls or emails on Saturday.
South Sudan’s military spokesman, Col. Philip Aguer, said that government troops are not in control of Bor, so the attack on the U.S. aircraft has to be blamed on renegade soldiers, he said.

Some of my Army son’s buddies from Fort Bragg may be in the middle of this nightmare, and it just horrifies me to think of the parents of these wounded soldiers being notified that their sons got shot because some idiot “rebel” in South Sudan decided to shoot at Americans who are only there to try to save lives.

Well, when it was announced Thursday that President Obama was sending 45 troops to South Sudan, my first comment was that I would have been more comfortable if he had sent 450. But maybe even 4,500 wouldn’t be enough, and maybe there’s no hope at all.

UPDATE: Reports from the U.S. Embassy in South Sudan:

Long story short, if there are U.S. personnel in Bor, they’re stuck there until the situation gets under control and, frankly, it looks like the situation is rapidly heading in the other direction.

UPDATE II: Sorting through the online reports:

The Associated Press reports:

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Gunfire hit a U.S. military aircraft trying to evacuate American citizens in a remote region of South Sudan that on Saturday became a battle ground between the country’s military and renegade troops, officials said. Four U.S. service members were wounded in the attack in the same region that gunfire downed a U.N. helicopter the day before.
The U.S. military aircraft was about to land in Bor, the capital of the state of Jonglei and scene of some of the nation’s worst violence over the last week, when it was hit. One American service member was reported to be in critical condition.
The U.S. military’s Africa Command said the aircraft was “participating in a mission to evacuate American citizens in Bor.” A South Sudan official said violence against civilians there has resulted in bodies “sprinkled all over town.” . . .
Two officials told The Associated Press that after the aircraft took incoming fire, they turned around and flew to Kampala, Uganda. From there the service members were flown to Nairobi, Kenya for medical treatment.

If these were V-22 Osprey, then the wounded troops are most likely Marines. Meanwhile, there is this troubling report:

The commander fourth division of South Sudan’s army in oil-producing Unity state has declared that he has deposed the governor and that his forces are no longer loyal to President Salva Kiir.
Speaking over state and private radio stations on Saturday morning Commander James Koang Chuol said he had overthrown Unity state’s acting governor, Joseph Nguen Monytuel, after he was involved in plot to assassinate him.
Koang said that the fourth division’s tank unit tried to kill him at around 7pm on Friday evening, after they were ordered to do so by governor Monytuel at the behest of senior members of the military in Juba.
Addressing the people of Unity state, Koang orderd, the state’s ministers to remain in their homes but called on civil servants to continue working as normal.
The fourth division commander said South Sudan’s president, vice president and the former caretaker governor of Unity state had fueled the fighting that has spread through the country since it began in the capital, Juba on 15 December.

Because that report comes from a Khartoum-based source, I’m taking it with a grain of salt. In a breaking news situation like this, first reports are always confused, and it’s impossible for me to tell if this is just anti-Kiir propaganda.

PREVIOUSLY:

 

Category: Military, Sudan

#SouthSudan: Please, Pray for Peace

Posted on | December 21, 2013 | 12 Comments

It has been said by numerous observers in recent days that South Sudan is the “world’s newest nation,” and most people in America have no idea how long and how hard South Sudan fought to gain its independence from the Muslim regime in Khartoum. That the people of this newborn nation would so soon risk losing all they had fought for — well, it’s shocking beyond words.

Watching the news develop — and thanks very much to Twitchy for taking notice — I’ve been absolutely heartbroken, and trying hard not to write a long essay about this mess. Reuters reports:

The United Nations estimated on Friday that at least 11 people from the ethnic Dinka group in South Sudan were killed during an attack by thousands of armed youths from a different ethnic group on a U.N. peacekeeping base in Jonglei state.
About 2,000 ethnic Lou Nuer youths overran the U.N. base in Akobo on Thursday, killing two of the 43 Indian peacekeepers and fleeing with arms and ammunition, the United Nations said.  . . .
French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud, president of the U.N. Security Council for December, said there were now fears that a similar attack could occur in Bor, where several thousand armed youths had gathered near a U.N. base sheltering 14,000 civilians. The Nuer massacred Dinka in Bor in 1991.
“There were two or three thousand people with heavy weapons who were close to the camp so there was, of course, the worry about what they were going to do since it would be exactly the same scenario as what happened in Akobo,” Araud told reporters after deputy U.N. peacekeeping chief Edmond Mulet briefed the council on the situation in South Sudan.

The Associated Press reports:

Armed rebels were said to be in control of some of South Sudan’s oil fields Friday, raising questions of how long the country’s oil will flow and whether Sudan could enter the conflict.
President Salva Kiir implored his country to turn away from ethnic violence and met Friday with foreign ministers from neighbouring states, including Kenya and Ethiopia, who flew into Juba, the capital, to help calm tensions after a week of ethnic strife that is estimated to have killed hundreds.

Even if the negotiations succeed in preventing the spread of fighting, there has already been serious damage done — many tens of thousands of refugees have fled the violence — and the fragile economy of South Sudan will take months to recover. Today’s New York Times headline: “South Sudan Steps Closer to Unraveling.”

This story is developing rapidly and the next 48 to 72 hours may be crucial. You’re not likely to get much news about this crisis from the networks, so the best way to keep track of the situation is to watch the #SouthSudan hashtag on Twitter.

 


Category: Sudan

MSNBC OMFG: @ChrisLHayes and Guest @RichardKimNYC Talk About Butt Sex

Posted on | December 20, 2013 | 84 Comments

If you wonder why Chris Hayes’ ratings are so low — he gets fewer viewers (622,000) at 8 p.m. ET than either Chris Matthews at 7 p.m. (798,000) or Rachel Maddow at 9 p.m. (712,000) — this one-minute video clip from Thursday may explain a lot:

HAYES: I was a little surprised, given how vile the comments are, given the very rapidly shifting norms about how people feel about love between people of the same gender, right? That the right-wingers sort of lined up so quickly behind him.
KIM: Yeah, and you know, I think one of the really funny things about the comments was just the sort of anatomical crudeness of them. Like he said the vagina is more desireable than the anus, and it’s sort of like, has he tried the anus? Because maybe if he did, he would like it more. If you’re going to reduce something as complex as human sexuality to which orifice is better …
HAYES: That’s a great follow-up question.

Suffice to say that prime-time discussions of anal sex with Richard Kim — whose expertise on the subject I’m sure we’re all willing to stipulate — probably aren’t helping MSNBC’s ratings.

Hat tips: Weasel Zippers and Saving the Republic.

REMEMBER: Buy all your Duck Commander products through our Amazon Associates link here — A&E won’t get a cent!

 

Category: Gays, MSNBC
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