The Other McCain

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

Also, Troll, You Misspelled ‘Syphilis’

Posted on | November 21, 2013 | 59 Comments

Between 5:21 and 5:23 p.m. ET, someone using my name and the bogus e-mail address “[email protected]” posted four insulting comments on an earlier thread, one of which mentioned my 14-year-old son by name. Wombat whacked them with the troll hammer, but not before the IP address (46.182.106.190) was traced to a proxy server in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Question: Who habitually uses Dutch proxy servers?

Answer: Spammers, hackers, child pornographers and other criminals, as well as various demented admirers of Brett Kimberlin.

Not long after these troll comments were deleted and the proxy server IP address was banned, Bill Schmalfeldt said this on Twitter:

“I am out of the political radio business.
What’s the point? They attack me, I respond, they retaliate
I retaliate, and what good does it do?”

Probably just a coincidence.

 

Category: Blogging

Alleged Pederast Harry Reid Disregards Senate Rules, and Also Craves Boy Flesh

Posted on | November 21, 2013 | 135 Comments

You’ve probably forgotten the Harry Reid pederasty scandal of 2012, because the lamestream media refused to cover the accusations. There was certainly as much evidence for that as for Harry Reid’s claim that Mitt Romney evaded paying income tax — an accusation that Reid insisted Romney must disprove — and I don’t remember Harry ever proving he is not sexually interested in young boys, so by his standards of logic, it’s fair to say Harry Reid is a pederast.

Now the alleged deviant Harry Reid has stricken down the Senate rules:

After years of threats and warnings, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and his Democratic majority on Thursday executed the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees, except for the Supreme Court.

Drew M. at Ace of Spades explains:

This is going to result in all out partisan warfare in the Senate. Democrats complain fillibusters slow the Senate down but requiring a vote on everything and not agreeing to any unanimous consent requests will grind it to a halt. . . .
Reid is a lying hypocrite who is trying to change the subject from the damage that ObamaCare is causing across the country.

The Senate has adjourned, and Harry Reid will now return to his home state to meet with his constituents and fellate teenage boys.

Allegedly.

 

Category: Harry Reid

Our Moral Superiors: @Peter_Turchin’s Career of Selfish Academic Decadence

Posted on | November 21, 2013 | 30 Comments

The Myth of Progress, which imagines history generally as a more or less steady advancement toward enlightenment, is dependent upon our willingness to ignore the possibility of decadence.

Are we really more “enlightened” than the Founding Fathers? Do we see, in the general social and cultural trends around us, evidence of our moral and intellectual superiority to our ancestors? Even if education is more available and information more readily accessible because of technological advancement and increased affluence, does this really mean we are today more virtuous than our predecessors?

Whatever my career or educational attainments, it is certainly difficult for me to imagine that I am the moral superior of my father, who was born on a farm in Alabama, was wounded while fighting the Nazis in World War II, graduated from the University of Alabama, moved to Atlanta, worked 37 years at the Lockheed aircraft plan in Marietta, and raised a family of three sons, myself included.

My mother was also an intelligent and hard-working woman, my grandparents and aunts and uncles were all decent, respectable citizens, and it has been a formidable challenge to myself, my siblings and my cousins to strive to match the achievements of our forbears, to do our share to uphold and advance the family honor.

Cheap talk of “progress” is therefore something I regard with necessary skepticism, insofar as I am not actually offended by the imputation of dishonor on my parents and ancestors implicit in the notion of “progress,” as if I were somehow better than my father simply for having been born three decades later than him.

University of Connecticut Professor Peter Turchin has an essay today at Bloomberg, “Blame Rich, Overeducated Elites as Our Society Frays,” which examines some of the problems of America’s decadent elite from an egalitarian progressive perspective.

It’s worth reading, although I perceive that Professor Turchin is ultimately part of the problem and not part of the solution. Let us ask this: What is Professor Turchin’s annual household income, and in what percentile of the U.S. economy does that place him?

His salary at the University of Connecticut is reported at $122,000 a year, which certainly puts him in the top 5% and yet, not content with this handsome taxpayer-subsidized income, Professor Turchin’s overwhelming greed leads him also to seek additional wealth in the form of fees for writing articles in professional journals and the popular press. Yet even that isn’t enough to satisfy Professor Turchin’s infinite avarice, as he also pursues lucrative book contracts and public speaking fees.

You might think that all this money-grubbing would provide more than enough to meet the reasonable needs of even the most extraordinarily selfish person, but the boundless materialism of Professor Turchin drives him still further, as he moonlights as the vice president of a non-profit boondoggle called the Evolution Institute — the kind of posh gig that probably pays him tens of thousands of dollars annually just to attend meetings and seminars and so forth. (See update below.)

Let’s not even try to calculate the worth of the stocks and bonds and mutual funds in Professor Turchin’s 401(k) plan, nor can we estimate the dollar-value of the health insurance, vacation, sick leave and other benefits provided to him (courtesy of taxpayers) as a state university professor. The point here is that Professor Turchin’s sinecure — academic tenure guaranteeing him lifetime employment — has made him quite a wealthy man, and that he has taken advantage of every imaginable opportunity to augment his enviable riches.

If the most significant problem of American society is that the rich are getting richer, Professor Peter Turchin’s research into that problem requires only that he look in the nearest mirror.

Such is my contempt for Professor Peter Turchin that I would not bother to take notice of him, except to point out that he’s the kind of son of bitch who never even hit a blogger’s tip jar.

Our Moral Superiors: We can never hate them as much as they hate us.




 

UPDATE: A reader did some research and reports that the Evolution Institute is a nickel-and-dime outfit — collecting about $200,000 a year — and that Professor Turchin is paid nothing as vice-president thereof. But has the IRS checked the books?

A thorough investigation might reveal that the Evolution Institute spends money hiring transvestite hookers to service its officers at the annual board meeting. Excuse my extreme skepticism of Professor Turchin’s allegedly philanthropic endeavors. Any devotee of evolutionary theory would be required to believe that altruism always serves a self-interested ulterior motive. So when a Darwinist pretends to be acting on principles of unselfish idealism, my gut hunch instinct is always, “Yeah, right. What in it for him?”

You may laugh, but this instinct is uncannily accurate.

Remember Professor Hugo Schwyzer, the “male feminist” who expressed his idealistic commitment to equality by boning 19-year-old coeds? Academia is crammed full of such frauds and perverts. Honesty is increasingly rare in America’s colleges and universities, and seldom do these corrupt intellectuals lie so boldly as when they tell us that they are motivated by selfless idealism.

 

 


Category: Culture, Economics, Education, History

Hey – Maybe It’s Just A Sandwich

Posted on | November 21, 2013 | 86 Comments

— Wombat-socho

“There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.”
-George Orwell

Which is about as good an introduction as we’re going to get for the mind-numbingly ridiculous The McRib: Enjoy Your Symptom, an essay for The Atlantic scrawled by one Ian Bogost, whose surname is reminiscent not only of “bogosity” but of the Britishism “bogroll”, which is our English cousins’ word for the household item commonly used to remove things most similar to this essay from your rear end.

“Lacan is a tyrant who must be driven from our shores. Narrowly trained English professors who know nothing of art history or popular culture think they can just wade in with Lacan and trash everything in sight.”
-Camille Paglia

Bogost would like us to take him seriously as he delivers a post-modernist philosophical critique of McDonald’s, that food emporium so often mocked by the intellectualoids as a threat not only to the diet and health of America but the very world, so he drags in the French pseudo-philosopher Lacan and the deranged, posturing Slovenian Communist Slavoj Zizek to “prove” that we don’t really know what we’re doing when we order the McRib, Chicken McNuggets, Double Quarter Pounder, or the other items on the menu. No, we’re just slaves to our unconscious, which desires things that aren’t on the menu but are rather marketed without being marketed. This is obvious nonsense, and Bogost teases us with the notion that he knows it’s nonsense before dancing away on another binge of free-association tarted up with art history and pseudo-paradoxes that exist only in the mind of people without the brainpower to do their own thinking without the crutches of Lacan, Saussure and their ilk.

Most people don’t want to know how the McRib and McNuggets are made for the same reason they don’t like hanging around slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants, and to suggest that there’s something wrong with this is itself wrong. It’s a clear signal that the writer doesn’t understand ordinary folks and how they think and feel. Unfortunately, this is a common problem with the academic Pecksniffs among us, who can’t understand why Americans prefer tasty, affordable mass-produced hamburgers and pork sandwiches to tasteless, expensive “organic” foods that can’t be easily consumed while on the road in the family minivan. Or, for that matter, a preference for clinging to guns and religion in a time when the intellectualoids and their Lightworker are in charge and straining to produce a national transformation.

Bogost drivels on about the seasonal appearance and disappearance of the McRib as if it were some kind of overwhelming cultural event, fraught with significance and weighing heavily on the American id. Clearly, he has zero understanding of the fast food business -or of any part of the food business, I daresay- and its attention to the changing tastes of the American consumer. Even a decade ago, the menus at McDonald’s and Burger King featured nothing more spicy than ketchup and pepper packets, but now both chains (and their competitors) boast barbeque sauces (hot and mild), jalapeno and habanero pepper-spiced items, and various Southwestern and Buffalo-style chicken items that leave a definite burning sensation behind on their way to the digestive tract. Items rotate in and out of the menu on a seasonal basis: you won’t find egg nog shakes in the middle of summer, or the regional specialty McBrat outside tailgate season in the Midwest.

There are many reasons to visit a McDonald’s: cheap, tasty food served fast; large sodas sold for cheap in the pit of the summer; free wifi when the home internet is down. Nobody goes there for the ambience or to experience a gastronomic thrill, and only a deluded intellectualoid like Mr. Bogost would think anyone would go there driven by the unquiet urges of their id. In the end, the McRib is just a sandwich.


Category: Farce, Intellectuals

‘Community Liaison,’ IYKWIMAITYD

Posted on | November 21, 2013 | 80 Comments

Officer Chris Wilson was the Phoenix Police Department’s “community liaison to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community” until August 2012, when he was arrested and charged with having sex with two teenage boys:

Officer Christopher J. Wilson, 43 . . . faces 10 felony counts of sexual assault with a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, Phoenix Police Chief Daniel Garcia said at a Wednesday news conference.
“This tragic incident is a disturbing violation of our public’s trust,” Garcia said.
Garcia called the 14-year-old boy “courageous” for informing his parents of the alleged assaults. The parents called police Tuesday afternoon, and detectives immediately sought more information, Garcia said.
Through the investigation, detectives learned of a second accuser, the 17-year-old boy, he said. . . .
The sexual encounters took place at several private locations, including Wilson’s home, Garcia said. Wilson lives by himself, according to court records.
Wilson worked as the department’s community liaison to the Valley’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and met his accusers through his job, police said.

So, being the “gay community liaison” turns out to have been a way for Officer Chris to meet teenage boys for sex. And it now appears that one of his young victims was also himself a victimizer:

A prominent LGBT rights and anti-bullying teen activist faces more than a dozen charges of sexual misconduct with a minor.
Caleb Laieski, 18, was indicted by a grand jury in Phoenix, Ariz., on the sex crime charges as part of a case against former Phoenix Police Detective Chris Wilson.
Wilson was arrested in December 2012 in the alleged sexual assaults of two male teen, ages 14 and 17. According to the Phoenix New Times, Laieski is that 17-year-old.
Laieski’s indictment doesn’t provide details about the alleged crimes, but accuses him of engaging in sexual activity with the 14-year-old.
Wilson, who resigned from the Phoenix police department following his arrest, had met Laieski and the 14-year-old while serving on department’s Community Response Squad as a liaison officer to the LGBT community.
The 14-year-old victim, who’s also emerged as a prominent young activist against anti-gay bullying, had told his parents about his alleged relationships with Laieski and Wilson, prompting his parents to file a complaint.
Laieski has said that he was “16-years-old, or at most, 17-years-old” when the alleged sexual encounters occurred, according to court filings.
Laieski began his anti-bullying activism after dropping out of high school at age 16. He achieved his GED, and rose to national prominence in May 2011 when he traveled to Washington to lobby Congress during a month-long lobbying crusade to garner support for the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA).
He later met President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden as a guest at the White House pride reception in June 2011.

President Obama and accused gay teen sex offender Caleb Laieski.

Does anyone see this case as evidence of what could be a larger problem? The whole “gay youth” movement — encouraging kids to “come out” and openly identify themselves as homosexual, even before they are legally old enough to be having sex — has always struck me as potentially problematic. And, as everybody knows, the recent “anti-bullying” initiative in public schools has been promoted by gay activists who claim that homophobic bullying is responsible for suicide by gay teens.

Nobody wants kids to be bullied or to commit suicide, of course, which is how “anti-bullying” becomes just another way for gay activists to gain support from well-meaning people whose reaction might otherwise be, “Whoa! Wait a minute! Aren’t these kids just a little bit too young to be marching around in the Gay Pride parade?”

That kind of reaction is just common sense. But common sense is politically incorrect, and some facts are now considered to be “hate.”

 

Category: Arizona, Crime, Gays, Sex

LIVE AT FIVESEVEN: 11.21.13

Posted on | November 21, 2013 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Loya Jirga Meets To Consider US-Afghan Security Pact

Hamid Karzai urges delegates to accept the pact

15,000 NATO troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014

Rep. Trey Radel Takes Leave of Absence
Pleads guilty to possession, enters rehab


Norks Detain 85-Year-Old Korean War Vet
Pulled off plane before departure



POLITICS
Second Wave Of Health Plan Cancellations Looms

“Remain calm! All is well!”

New analysis of Obamacare predicts 50-100 million cancellations right before the 2014 midterms next fall

Representative Grace Meng (D-NY) Mugged On Capitol Hill

4 Female Marines To Graduate Infantry Training This Week

Creigh Deeds Recovering After Stabbing

Indiana – No Reinstatement Of Policies Cancelled Under Obamacare



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Oil Falls As Iran Nuke Talks Begin: NYMEX $93.64, Brent $107.78
Eurozone Factory Output Rises As PRC Cools
Tribune Co. Cuts 700 Jobs From Newspaper Division
US Retail Sales Climb 0.4% In October
Google Wallet Now Comes With Debit Card
Credit Suisse To Fence Off Swiss Banking Operations In Separate Unit
Feds Reject Fairholme Proposal To Recapitalize Fannie & Freddie
XBox One: A $499 PC For Your Living Room
Instagram Comes To Windows Phone
LG Investigates Smart TV “Unauthorized Spying” Claim
Vint Cerf: “Privacy May Be An Anomaly”
Google Wireless Charger Goes On Sale



SPORTS
Big Deal: Tigers Trade Fielder To Rangers

Prince Fielder runs off the field during Game 2 of the ALCS

Rangers give up shortstop Ian Kinsler, get $30 million


Paul George Lifts Pacers Over Knicks

Pens Shut Out Caps 4-0

Clippers Beat Timbermutts 102-98


Nikitin Scores In OT, Blue Jackets Edge Flames

Grizzlies Rally For 11th Consecutive Win Against Warriors

Wild Edge Sens 4-3

Blazers Bump Bucks, Extend Streak To Eight

Devils Score Late In Third Before Winning Against Ducks In OT

Nationals Add Solis, Taylor, Barrett To 40-Man Roster



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Lady Gaga Closes Out The Roseland

At the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards

Will play the last four shows at the iconic NYC ballroom

Paramount Nixes “It’s A Wonderful Life” Sequel

Chris Brown Booted From Rehab After Throwing Rocks At Mom’s Car

Chris Hemsworth, Elsa Pataky Expecting Second Child

Leighton Meester Engaged To Adam Brody


World Famous Psychic Sylvia Brown Dies, 77

Josh Dallas, Ginnifer Goodwin Expecting First Child

Duchess Of Cambridge Has Marilyn Monroe Moment

Eminem To Reconcile With Ex-Wife?

Lindsay Lohan, Unspeakable Armenian Attend Kanye West Concert

“The Tomorrow People” Casting Scoop: Liz Hurley To Stir Up Trouble In Vindictive Role

Dwayne Wade Sells Semi-Autobiographical Comedy To Fox

Amanda Bynes Ruled Competent To Stand Trial

Teresa Giudice Pleads Not Guilty

Kate Gosselin Drops Multi-Million Dollar Hacking & Wiretapping Suit Against Ex-Husband



FOREIGNERS
Drone Strike Kills Six In Pakistan
Million-Dollar Gold Stash Found In Indian Airliner’s Toilet
BOJ’s Kuroda Upbeat About Global Prospects, Says Japan Recovery On Track
Paris Gunman Caught, Linked To 1990s Shooting Spree
Embassy Bombers Used Fake Lebanese IDs
Russia Grants Bail To 5 More In Greenpeace Case
Indonesian Protesters Call For “War Against Australia” Over Phone-Tapping Scandal
Pakistan’s Malala Receives EU Prize
Ukraine Parliament Rejects Proposed Bills For Tymoshenko Release



BLOGS & STUFF
First Street Journal: Help Wanted – Good Liberal Commenters Needed!
Michelle Malkin: Arne Duncan’s War On Women And Children
Twitchy: Katie Pavlich Has A Suggestion For Matthew Yglesias’ “Coddled, Overpaid” Doctors
Chicks On The Right: And The Hits Just Keep On Coming
American Power: New AFP Ads Target Democrats On Obamacare
American Thinker: Reining In America’s Greatest Lawbreaker – President Obama
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Why Your College Degree Is Worthless
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Don’t Get Lippy With Deppity Rosco P. Aytes
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, November 20
Jammie Wearing Fools: Project Veritas Drops Another Bomb On Obamacare
JustOneMinute: Hire This Man
Pat Dollard: Mark Levin – The GOP Establishment Has No Plan To Eliminate Obamacare
Protein Wisdom: Nordstrom, A Class Act
Shot In The Dark: You Asked. I Answer.
The Jawa Report: At Last, Good News From Iraq
The Lonely Conservative: ABC News Reports – Dozens Of Terrorists In US As Refugees
Megan McArdle: Walmart Is Having A Very Bad Week


Category: Live at Five

Kook Update: Roger Shuler

Posted on | November 20, 2013 | 30 Comments

Crazy people like Roger Shuler have rights, even in Alabama.

You may or may not remember Bill Schmalfeldt’s personal hero, Alabama crazy-blogger Roger Shuler, who got locked up last month for contempt of court after publishing unsubstantiated defamation against evil Republicans who (in Roger’s delusional mind) are conspiring with Karl Rove to silence courageous truth-teller Roger Shuler.

If you remember this kook — see my Oct. 30 American Spectator column, “Crazy in Alabama” to refresh your memory — then you may also remember that First Amendment advocate Ken White of Popehat believes that Roger Shuler’s rights were infringed. It is necessary to keep in mind two key points about this case:

  1. Roger Shuler has rights, just like any other American; and
  2. Roger Shuler is crazy as hell.

Well, the Alabama judge handed down an injunction against Roger Shuler this week and, while still maintaining that there are vital First Amendment issues involved, Ken White observes:

However, Roger Shuler continues to be the biggest impediment to vindication of Roger Shuler’s rights. His behavior is calculated to court martyrdom, not to protect his First Amendment rights. That’s a shame.

Yeah, it may be a shame, but it may also be a symptom.

Crazy people act in ways that are harmful to their best interests, Q.E.D.

Elsewhere, Ken White examines Roger Schuler’s complaint that the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department infringed his rights:

A helpful tipster sent me the Shelby County Sheriff’s return of service and log of service attempts. The log generally supports the assertion (admitted by Shuler) that Shuler was evading service of process, which is part of the pattern of nutty pro se conduct that contributed to his trouble.

“The pattern of nutty pro se conduct.” Roger Shuler has been acting as his own attorney. If Roger Shuler was a competent attorney, he would advise his client Roger Shuler to plead insanity.

 

Category: Roger Shuler

What? Those ‘Toxic Little Queens’ at MSNBC Don’t Want Alec Baldwin Back?

Posted on | November 20, 2013 | 51 Comments

Evil Blogger Lady calls attention to the shocking news — shocking! — that the network suits aren’t eager for a return to Baldwinism:

Alec Baldwin is not welcome back at MSNBC because of his infamous angry behavior, network insiders say — including complaining that “the air at 30 Rock is too dry.”
Sources exclusively tell us that MSNBC chiefs are not exactly falling over themselves to get boisterous Baldwin back in the building. One insider said, “He would only show up at work an hour a week to prep for the show, and when he did turn up, he was in an angry mood, red-faced, and shouting at all the staff. And he said the air at 30 Rock was too dry, it was bad for his voice, he needed a humidifier.” . . .
According to Deadline.com, Baldwin’s last show hit a demo low, pulling in only 101,000 viewers aged 25 to 54 against 395,000 total viewers — a 41 percent drop from the 172,000 viewers 25 to 54 who watched the Oct. 11 debut. MSNBC suspended Baldwin this month after he hurled an anti-gay slur at a paparazzo. He apologized, “I did not intend to hurt or offend anyone with my choice of words.”

Moral of the story: You can’t be an overbearing egomaniacal a–hole on TV unless you deliver good ratings.

 


Category: Celebrities, MSNBC
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