The Other McCain

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

Did You Know You Can Buy Delicious Barilla Pasta via Our Amazon Links?

Posted on | September 26, 2013 | 62 Comments

Barilla Mezze Penne, Barilla Farfalle, Barilla Tri-Color Rotini — yes, Amazon offers a wide variety of delicious Barilla pasta. Honestly, I don’t know why the subject came up, but Guido Barilla was on a radio program and explained why his company doesn’t use gay couples in their ads: “Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role.” So now Ace of Spades reports there is a boycott campaign:

Yes, not clapping hard enough for the sexual choices of gays constitutes “homophobia” now. “Intolerance” now means “an uncivilized lack of moist enthusiasm.” . . .
I always dreamed of a world in which I was Free to be rentlessly henpecked, anklebitten, bullied & boycotted by well-funded leftist groups paid to harass citizens every waking moment of every single day. . . .
The gay lobby wants Barilla (and all other corporations) to affirmatively campaign for their political agenda. Ergo, Barilla’s statement that they won’t be doing that is now defined as “homophobia.”

Look, I know Ace. He’s not a homophobe. But like a lot of other non-homophobic people in the Obama Age, he’s sick and tired of being constantly lectured about how awfully oppressed gay people are, as if heterosexuals don’t have problems of their own to worry about, as if we’re all supposed to stop whatever we’re doing and jump in line to be outraged by whatever the Gay Lobby wants us to be outraged about, which seems to be damned near everything nowadays.

So, everybody buy some Barilla pasta, because hate is delicious.

 

 

UPDATE: The holidays are coming, so might as well stock up!

And how could I forget to mention delicious Barilla sauce?

 

 

Category: Ace of Spades, Amazon, Gays

Apparently, Hamilton College Girls Don’t Know How to Have Orgasms, Either

Posted on | September 26, 2013 | 68 Comments

Doug Hagin accused me of gratuitously invoking “Roll, Tide” yesterday when I pointed out that tuition at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., is $45,620 a year, compared to $9,450 a year for in-state students ($23,950 for out-of-state) at the University of Alabama. My point was, why would anyone spend all that money to attend a snooty liberal arts college up north, when they could save money by attending the finest school in Dixie with the finest football team in the world?

In addition to bad weather, a sorry football team — Hamilton lost to 23-7 to Amherst — and not knowing the difference between segregation and “diversity,” it appears that Hamilton College’s problems also include coeds who don’t know how to have orgasms:

A small, prestigious liberal arts school in New York is set to host and fund a workshop on orgasms for undergrads on Monday.
Hamilton College will host an orgasm workshop on Monday.
The workshop, hosted by Hamilton College’s Womyn’s Center, will teach “everything from multiple orgasms to that mysterious G-spot,” according to its official description, and is is open to male and female students.
“Whether you want to learn how to have your first orgasm, how to have better ones, or how to help your girlfriend, Maggie and Marshall cover it all,” [says] the event description on the Womyn’s Center’s Facebook page.
“Maggie and Marshall,” Marshall Miller and Maggie Keenan-Bolger, are the two “sex educators” who teach the workshop.
The exact price that the school paid for the workshop is unknown, however, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, paid $3,406 to host the same workshop earlier this year. . . .
The workshop is put on by Sex Discussed Here!, an organization that teaches sex education to college students.

Now, I’m tempted to suggest Hamilton girls are so stupid they can’t even find their own vaginas, but research indicates that Hamilton only admits undergraduates with high SAT scores. So maybe the problem is the inferior quality of male students at Hamilton.

Face it, ladies: Those nerdy wimps with straight-A averages don’t necessarily get your juices flowing and, if we can use the anemic record of Hamilton’s football team as a barometer of the general manliness of your student body . . . Well, there’s your problem, see?

Y’all head on down to Tuscaloosa, and they’ll fix you right up.

Roll, Tide!

 

Category: Education, Football, Sex

More Terrorism in Kenya; Interpol Alert for ‘White Widow’ Samantha Lewthwaite

Posted on | September 26, 2013 | 20 Comments

Britain’s terrorist ‘White Widow,’ Samantha Lewthwaite.

There were two new terrorist attacks in Kenya yesterday and today, and now there is an international search for a suspected leader:

An INTERPOL Red Notice, or internationally wanted persons alert, has been issued for UK national Samantha Lewthwaite at the request of authorities in Kenya.
Lewthwaite, aged 29, who is also believed to use the alias ‘Natalie Webb’, is wanted by Kenya on charges of being in possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony dating back to December 2011.
Circulated to all 190 INTERPOL member countries, the Red Notice represents one of INTERPOL’s most powerful tools in tracking international fugitives.

Earlier this week I reported suspicion that Lewthwaite had led the attack on Nairobi’s Westgate mall, and now the New York Times reports:

Several witnesses said that one attacker was a Caucasian woman who slipped out of the mall after instructing other assailants whom to shoot. Kenyan officials said that a British woman, Samantha Lewthwaite, who converted to Islam and married a man who became a suicide bomber, might have been involved.
On Thursday, Interpol issued an international arrest notice for Ms. Lewthwaite. The notice, requested by the Kenyan government, did not mention the mall massacre and said that Ms. Lewthwaite has been wanted since 2011 on charges of possessing explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony. In Kenya and Britain, Ms. Lewthwaite is frequently referred to as the “white widow.”
Several Western officials said they had heard reports from the Kenyan military that some of the victims in the mall had been beheaded and butchered with knives. Kenyan officials declined to comment, but one Western security adviser, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said “I fully expect it.”

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

 

Category: Kenya, Terrorism

Texas Democrat Student Group Leader Exposed as Convicted Sex Offender

Posted on | September 26, 2013 | 103 Comments

Convicted sex offender Billy Johnson

A convicted sex offender is the leader of a Democrat student group at a Texas university, Katherine Timpf of Campus Reform reports.

Billy Johnson, who is president of the Young Democrats chapter at the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA) campus in Edinburg, Texas, was convicted in 2003 of “indecency” with an 8-year-old child, Timpf reported, citing state criminal records and a 2010 local news article about Johnson when he volunteered at an elementary school.

Earlier this month, Johnson’s work registering students at UTPA was praised on Twitter by Jenn Brown, executive director of the liberal activist group Battleground Texas:

Johnson spent three years in prison, according to records cited by Timpf, who said UTPA officials did not respond to request for comment.

 

Category: Crime, Democrats, Education, Sex

Miley Cyrus: Insult to Injury

Posted on | September 26, 2013 | 47 Comments

Alessandra gets angry about Miley Cyrus trying to use complaints about a “double standard” to defend her decadent behavior:

What few people have analyzed is how much liberals have normalized the worst of sexism in the name of liberation (sexual or for women). It’s exactly analogous to their claim that they are “liberating” homosexuals when the only thing they are doing is normalizing perverted and dysfunctional people in terms of sexuality. . . .
There was a time when Miley’s behavior would have been both frowned upon as being whorish and vulgar, because such attitudes and behaviors degrade women and sexuality . . . Then came feminism and criticized the sexual objectification of women, their exploitation, etc. And afterwards, as liberals pushed more and more to degrade women and sexuality, in a move that increasingly included women as protagonists, there wasn’t much of anyone in the liberal camp left to criticize this war on women (and sexuality), since the more liberals degrade, the more they claim they are normal and legitimate – all in the name of liberation. (Nothing like adding insult to injury!)
Basically the only people to call for respect of women and a wholesome sexuality today are social conservatives. Unfortunately, if taken as a whole, this is a group which has a serious public communication skills deficit.

You can read the whole thing. I will quibble with Alessandra’s criticism of the “public communications skills” of social conservatives. The real problem, as I see it, is two-fold:

  1. Social conservatives have allied themselves with the Republican Party in a way that makes them largely dependent on the GOP, which has shown itself willing to exploit social conservatives (when this is deemed beneficial to Republican political fortunes) or conversely to scapegoat social conservatives (when the GOP needs someone to blame for its defeats).
  2. Because academia, the news media and the entertainment industry are so dominated by liberals, it is very difficult for social conservatives to combat the Left’s harmful stereotypes about uptight puritanical right-wing “christofascists.” Furthermore, it is difficult even for social conservatives to locate their own natural leaders and spokesmen, when the liberal media focus their attention on the most idiotic kooks among social conservatives, and when various charlatans and hucksters are simply scamming for dollars, Elmer Gantry-style.

There are sane, intelligent and articulate social conservatives, but you’re never going to see them on the nightly network news, nor on the op-ed pages of the Washington Post or New York Times. But we must accept these disadvantages as inherent to the guerrilla struggle of the culture war, and find ways to overcome them.

 

Category: Celebrities, Culture, Sex

The Homeless: A Criminal Menace

Posted on | September 26, 2013 | 21 Comments

A 21-year-old woman was seriously injured Wednesday in White Plains, N.Y., when a homeless man who had been panhandling at the train station pushed her in front of a commuter train:

The suspect — Howard J. Mickens, 39, who lives in a White Plains shelter — was charged with second-degree attempted homicide, police told 1010 WINS.
The victim, who was not identified, was being treated at the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla.
The victim is a Hunter College student.

Like so many of the “homeless,” Mickens is a career criminal:

According to MTA police, Mickens has 11 previous arrests, including five that were described as alleged violent felonies. He has several convictions, but officials could not provide an exact number.

Most people don’t realize that, according to some studies, about half of the “homeless” population have criminal records. Many others have substance-abuse issues or are mentally ill. I described the extent of this problem in an article 10 years ago:

A survey conducted [in 2001] by the Boston Rescue Mission found that 49 percent of their clients said they had criminal records, and 32 percent said they had spent time in prison, while 12 percent said they were discharged directly from a prison to a shelter.
A study in Cambridge, Mass., found that the homeless, though 0.5 percent of the population, accounted for 10 percent of all arrests during a two-year period — including 40 arrests for assault or aggravated assault, 18 for burglary, eight for robbery, 54 for shoplifting, 18 for sale or possession of narcotics, and one for rape.
In Los Angeles, a police sweep of the homeless in December [2002] resulted in 214 arrests, including the capture of more than 100 parole violators.

Why can’t we do anything about this problem? Because the liberal media won’t tell the truth about it, that’s why. By presenting the “homeless” as helpless victims of society, the media create sympathy for dopeheads, nutjobs and thugs who are a persistent menace to public safety and need to be locked up somewhere.

 

Category: Crime

Great SF Authors That Go Well Together

Posted on | September 26, 2013 | 53 Comments

— by Wombat-socho


Joe The Fat Man recommended Point Apocalypse in the comments last week, and Richard McEnroe likewise put in a good word for The Futurians by Damon Knight, The Way the Future Was by Fred Pohl, and Dream Makers by Charles Platt. There’s also Dream Makers, Vol. 2 if you can’t get enough of the SF author interviews.


C.M. Kornbluth is one of those great talents who died far too early, but he did leave us some great stories to remember him by. In addition to the classics “The Little Black Bag”, “The Altar At Midnight”, and “The Marching Morons” (for a more modern take on this, watch Idiocracy) he collaborated with Fred Pohl on the marvelously cynical Gladiator at Law and The Space Merchants, both of which look into futures where businesses dominate politics and people are shamelessly manipulated by advertising. Most of Kornbluth’s short fiction has been collected in the NESFA Press anthology His Share of Glory.


More recently, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle have collaborated on some excellent books revisiting “tired” SF tropes, the best known of which is The Mote in God’s Eye , which is mainly about first contact with aliens. They returned to that topic in Footfall, in which intelligent alien elephants conquer the world – but not for long. Niven and Pournelle can also do non-SF: see Lucifer’s Hammer for their account of a cometary impact on Earth. HUGE cast of characters, all done well, unlike some other SF authors I could name. They also had the chutzpah to rewrite Dante’s Inferno and send an SF writer to hell in Inferno, and (with Michael Flynn) did a novel on global cooling in which SF fans save a pair of stranded astronauts: Fallen Angels, which may already be familiar to you through Instapundit’s mocking references to it throughout the “global warming” nonsense. As if that weren’t enough, they also collaborated with Steven Barnes on the extra-solar colonial horror thriller The Legacy of Heorot and its sequel Beowulf’s Children .


David Drake has done a whole slew of collaborations with other authors, but I’m going to focus on my personal favorites, the Raj Whitehall series co-written with S.M. Stirling. This tale of a young officer on the faraway planet of Bellevue chosen by an ancient AI to unite and save humanity comprises five novels in which Whitehall goes from one difficult campaign to another, with the ever-present threat of his paranoid governor Barholm Clerett hanging over him like the Sword of Damocles. Roughly based on the life of Belisarius, the series is full of fun little oddities -to cite but one example, riding dogs have replaced horses; for another, the predominant religion in the mostly Hispanic Gubernio Civil is the Church of the Spirit of Man of the Stars, which considers computers holy and their components sacred relics- tense battles, and political skulduggery mainly handled by Raj’s noble-born wife Suzette. The five novels got bundled into two collections by Baen, Warlord and Conqueror . The series went off-planet in three sequels: The Chosen , The Tyrant , and The Reformer. A new series of sequels seems to have begun with The Heretic , co-written by Tony Daniels. I picked up a copy from the local library back in July, and it was good, but there are too many loose ends for me to think this is going to be a one-off like the two previous sequels.


So what are you reading this week?


Category: Uncategorized

News Flash: Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | September 26, 2013 | 35 Comments

This isn’t really surprising, is it?

The man who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard 10 days ago left behind electronic documents saying that the government had been attacking his brain for the past three months using “extremely low frequency” electromagnetic waves created by the Navy . . .
The documents provide the most detailed explanation to date for what investigators believe motivated the rampage by Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old military contractor and former Navy reservist from Fort Worth who was killed in a shootout with the police at the navy yard.
“Ultra low frequency attack is what I’ve been subject to for the last three months,” Mr. Alexis wrote in one document found by investigators . . .
Mr. Alexis had a history of angry outbursts over the last decade, and he had been arrested three times in three states, though he was never prosecuted in any of those episodes. . . .
A month before the shootings, Mr. Alexis told the police in Newport, R.I., that he had been hearing voices sent by a “microwave machine.” . . .
The Navy has used low frequency electromagnetic waves, or ELF, for submarine communications. But some conspiracy theorists say the government has weaponized the frequencies to monitor and manipulate unsuspecting citizens, Ms. Parlave said. The phrases “my elf weapon,” “end to the torment,” “not what ya’ll say” and “better off this way” were etched into the side of the shotgun that Mr. Alexis used to kill many of the victims, she said.

Used to be, we locked up crazy people in the looney bin. Nowadays, we we give them jobs as government contractors. Progress!

 

Category: Crime
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