The Other McCain

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

FMJRA 2.0: A Small Collection Of Chords

Posted on | September 7, 2013 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

BRETT KIMBERLIN SUES BLOGGERS

Washington Post Publishes Jailbait Apologist (Ain’t I Done Told You So?)

Could the Creepy Orwellian Vibe at MSNBC Possibly Get Any Creepier?

Rule 5 Sunday: Short Skirt/Long Jacket

Lubricating the Slippery Slope: The Intellectual Astroglide of the Elite

Funniest Thing on the Internet Today

Can We Just Have the Air Force Drop Cable TV News Anchors on Syria?

To the Reader Who Bought 22 Seagate Hard Drives via Our Amazon Links …

FMJRA 2.0: Equinoxe

Shorter @Karoli: ‘Obama Will Obliterate You Teabaggers, and If You Complain About It, That’s a Conspiracy!’

World’s Youngest Blogger Demos Mollusc Missile System; DoD Contract To Follow?

President Punchline: Are Obama’s Top Advisors Late-Night TV Joke Writers?

So The Kneepad Media Has A Pass On #Syria. Will It Grow Real Curiosity?

My Nightmare and @Andria_XX’s Reality

A Few Words About Moderation And The Banhammer

Victims of the Id: There But for the Grace of God Go … Hey, Maybe You, Not Me!

Taiwanese Animators Weigh In On #Syria

Blogs…And Stuff Like That

DIE, HIPPIES! Instead of Bombing Syria, Why Don’t We Bomb Code Pink Instead?

Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt and His Massive Mountain of Failure

#Syria: ‘Just Thinking Out Loud’

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.04.13

OMG! @Alyssa_Milano to Appear on @FoxAndFriends; Liberals Go Nuts

Hey, Has Anybody in Virginia Noticed That Terry McAuliffe Is a Lying Scumbag?

‘Kafkatrapping’ and the Left’s Mental Assault Against America’s Future

‘Your Behavior Is Deviant,’ Jewish Voter Tells Disgraced Anthony Weiner

The Sting Of Rodeo Clown’s “Red Line”

The Golden Age

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.05.13

Popcorn! Amazon Sells Delicious Popcorn!

Brett Kimberlin Lies About His Crimes

#Syria: Liberals Finally Beginning to Notice Obama Isn’t Really All That?

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.06.13

An American Crisis: Fat Lesbians

The Urge to Purge: Strange Events Inspired by Diana West Controversy

Kentucky Atheist Teacher @ChrisRenfrow Wants to Repeal Statutory Rape Laws?

Does Unemployed Atheist @ChrisRenfrow Need to Work on His Anger Issues?

Who Knew @BarackObama Was A Fan Of @Vadum’s Old Band, Focus?

YOLO .341, ‘F–K THE HATERS,’ and Other Evidence of Encroaching Madness

Top linkers this week:

  1. Regular Right Guy (39)
  2. EBL (28+3 Batshit Crazy News)
  3. Da Tech Guy (4 + 3 Under The Fedora)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Links for next week’s FMJRA are due by midnight Friday, September 13.


Category: FMJRA Award

Divorced Woman Becomes Victim of Patriarchal Oppression and Biology …

Posted on | September 7, 2013 | 61 Comments

. . . but, yeah, mainly it’s the biology:

[A] 38-year-old woman . . . is a client of Ronald G. Lieberman, a family law attorney in Haddonfield, N.J. Mr. Lieberman is asking his client’s soon-to-be-former husband of eight years to pay $20,000 to cover her egg-freezing procedure, medication costs and several years of egg storage. “When they got married, the expectation was they would start a family,” he told me. “Now she might not have the chance much longer.” . . .
In the New Jersey couple’s case, they decided to divorce after undergoing several failed attempts at in vitro fertilization. Mr. Lieberman’s argument is that since fertility treatments were part of the marriage, they should be considered part of the marital lifestyle, which should be maintained as much as possible post-divorce. The only difference is, in the future, she’ll use another man’s sperm.

Ann Althouse:

It’s not just a matter of a man taking up the best fertility years of a woman’s life and somehow owing her the nearest thing to giving back her youth.

Professor Althouse, “the best fertility years of a woman’s life,” from a strictly scientific view, are ages 18-24. After age 27, fertility begins to decline and, in your 30s, that decline accelerates. So by the time Lieberman’s client married at 30, she was past her prime.

Of course, most healthy women can get pregnant at age 30, but the problem is that many sexually active women are not actually in good reproductive health, often as a result of damage to their fallopian tubes caused by sexually transmitted infections:

Chlamydia infection is the most common sexually transmitted disease, responsible for a record 1.1 million cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2007, and experts there estimate that twice that many cases go undetected. Left untreated, chlamydia can cause infertility or potentially fatal ectopic pregnancies. But many women aren’t even aware that they were exposed to it—possibly years ago — until they try to have a baby and can’t. . . .
Chlamydia is especially prevalent among women ages 15 to 19 and African-Americans, but sample studies have found the infection in nearly 10% of all female Army recruits, 10% of female college freshmen and 14% of women in managed-care plans. . . .
[E]ven when a woman no longer tests positive for an active infection, the chlamydia bacteria may have moved into her upper genital tract and set off pelvic inflammatory disease. PID can cause pelvic pain—or it can be asymptomatic—but it often leaves inflammation and scar tissue that blocks a woman’s fallopian tubes, preventing fertilization. PID is also the most common cause of ectopic pregnancy, which can be fatal. “It’s not the infection itself but the body’s response to get rid of the bacteria that causes the scarring,” says Dr. Toth. “And even if just some fragments of the bacteria remain, the immune system thinks an active infection is still present.”

At least one in 10 sexually active young women are infected with this disease that can effectively destroy her reproductive system and, as with all such diseases, the greater your number of partners — and the greater the number of your partners’ partners — the greater your risk of infection. Many women are ill-informed about the reality of this and other infertilty risks because of political correctness.

In 2001, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine decided to run a public awareness campaign with ads that stated plainly, “Advancing Age Decreases Your Ability to Have Children.” This is simply a fact — the science is settled — but because it contradicts feminist ideology, the NSRM ads were controversial:

Cindy O’Keefe, 28, who is single and wants to have kids, had a visceral reaction to the ad. “That’s pressuring women in their 20s and 30s to conceive,” she said, shouting over the lounge music at a trendy New York City bar. “That’s sick!”

Seattle Weekly reported that “women’s advocacy groups” denounced the “alarmist ads,” but since when are scientific facts “alarmist”? And isn’t a little factually-informed alarmism preferable to an ignorant indifference that results in desperate 30-something women shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for fertility treatments that, alas, often ultimately prove futile? I wrote about this issue a couple of years ago:

Postponing marriage until you are 30, and then imagining that you have plenty of time to wait around deciding when you want to become a mother, is not a natural way of thinking. To a greater extent than Rachel Birnbaum or her young readers may understand, this way of thinking is an artifact — or perhaps we might call it a side-effect — of the Contraceptive Culture, which fosters the belief that the procreative process is infinitely subject to human control. Yet while it is true that childbirth can always be prevented, by contraception or abortion, the logical obverse is not equally true: Pregnancy and childbirth cannot be magically conjured up in compliance to human will.

People really need to wake the hell up. The real world is not infinitely malleable, and biology does not conform to ideology.

 

 


Category: Contraceptive Culture, Family, Marriage, Science, Sex

You Stay Classy, Atheists!

Posted on | September 7, 2013 | 226 Comments

Dana Perino was on Fox News discussing a lawsuit by atheists who don’t like kids having to say “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance:

“I’m tired of them. I remember working at the Justice Department years ago when I first started right after 9/11 and a lawsuit like this came through, and before the day had finished, the United States Senate and the House of Representatives had both passed resolutions saying that they were for keeping ‘under God’ in the pledge. . . . If these people really don’t like it, they don’t have to live here.”

A sample of the erudite atheist commentary in response:

And you wonder why ladies don’t want to go to atheist conferences? Atheists are so respectful, you f**king c**ts!

UPDATE: This is a recurrent theme with God-haters:

You can ask Michelle Malkin, Sarah Palin, Dana Loesch, Ann Coulter — any conservative woman who speaks on behalf of that which is good, true and decent will be bombarded with ugly filth from advocates of that which is evil, false and indecent, i.e., Democrats.

Democrat Party monsters even try to kill in the name of “social justice.” Because chicken sandwiches cause hate or something.

UPDATE II: What is it with Democrats and the “c-word,” huh?

 

Category: Fox News, Religion

YOLO .341, ‘F–K THE HATERS,’ and Other Evidence of Encroaching Madness

Posted on | September 6, 2013 | 61 Comments

Oliver Darcy has the mug shot of Samantha Lynne Goudie, who famously had a Breathalyzer-measured blood-alcohol content of .341 when she was arrested at a football game last week:

“Just went to jail #yolo,” Goudie, using the Twitter handle @Vodka_samm, tweeted.
“Blew a .341 in jail,” she added, saying “I’m going to get .341 tattooed on me because its so epic.”
Goudie, later tweeting “F**K THE HATERS,” deleted or deactivated her Twitter account sometime on Tuesday.

Goudie is a “student” at the University of Iowa, and one wonders what sort of academic rigor is possible when consuming such brain-damaging quantities of booze. She’s into tattoos.

Do girls usually get tattoos when they’re sober? I think not. Is there a correlation between drunkeness and sexual promiscuity? I think so.

Just checked the 2012 exit polls: 60% of voters ages 18-24 voted for Obama. What do you want to bet @Vodka_samm is a Democrat?

Michigan teacher Neal Erickson is probably a Democrat, too. And is now in prison, where Democrats belong.

Mary McCarthy, an editor at Russ Smith’s Slice.com, seemed offended by my “fat lesbian crisis” post. Years ago, I wrote a few pieces for Russ’s epic tabloid, NY Press, but he sold that and the legendary era of the late ’90s NY Press is now just a fading memory.

Trust me, it was awesome, unlike Mary McCarthy:

I’ve been a professional writer for nearly 20 years, including work in the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Victorian Homes magazine, many regional magazines in Maryland (two as Editor: What’s Up Eastern Shore and Chesapeake Family) and several newspaper humor columns (‘Quite Contrary’ for Frederick Gazette and Centreville Record Observer). . . .
I’ve appeared as a speaker at national conferences including BlogHer (’10, ’12), BloggyCon (’11, ’12), and the regional Bay to Ocean Writers Conference (’10, ’11, ’12, ’13, ’14). This fall, I start as a teacher in blogging and social media at The Writer’s Center in Washington, DC.

So I could slag her, but then my Twitter feed would fill up with angry people who want to tell me how wonderful Mary McCarthy is, and what an awful person I am for saying bad things about her, and threatening to sue me for defamation, harassment, etc.

And she’s too boring to deserve that. YOLO.

Freshman orientation for university students in Nova Scotia apparently includes Introduction to Canadian Poetry:

Y is for your sister
O is for oh so tight
U is for underage
N is for no consent
G is for grab that ass

Even in Canada, some people are upset about that:

Colin Dodds, president of the University, released this statement: ‘A recent Orientation Week event involving student leaders chanting inappropriate and offensive lyrics is completely inexcusable and violates our University’s commitment to upholding the values of equality and respect.
‘My colleagues and I were shocked by this incident and are deeply sorry that our students, and now the community at large, were exposed to disturbing sexually charged material.
‘The University regrets that this was allowed to occur and we apologize unreservedly.
‘I am taking measures to ensure it does not happen in the future.’

As bad as that particular sample of Canadian poetry was, was it really that much worse than the average Neil Young song?

Law-abiding citizens with guns? What an excellent idea!

Oberlin College? Not such an excellent idea.

Is pornography killing the economy? Well, it’s not helping Anthony Weiner.

Hey, remember when liberal celebrities were against war and stuff?

Do you really want to read more about Syria? Life’s too short. YOLO.

 

Category: Uncategorized

Who Knew @BarackObama Was A Fan Of @Vadum’s Old Band, Focus?

Posted on | September 6, 2013 | 34 Comments

by Smitty

If only the United Nations were half as good as Matt Vadum’s old band Focus. Check out Matthew’s yodeling while occupying the ivories in this classic performance:

If the U.N. actually rocked like that, Barack-man wouldn’t have to put up a red line. And he certainly wouldn’t call the efforts of the world’s premier diplomatic train wreck “Hocus Pocus”.
And who juiced Walter Russell Mead’s coffee?

Now the President is twisting lonesomely in the wind, and the question is whether Congress will ride to the rescue. If it doesn’t, it will be the closest thing the American system has to a parliamentary vote of “no confidence”, where Congress explicitly declares to the world that the President of the United States does not speak for the country.

That would be very dangerous. Foreigners will no longer know when and whether to take anything this President says as representing American policy rather than his own editorial opinions. We hate to say it, but that is so dangerous that there’s a strong argument for Congress to back the Syria resolution simply to avoid trashing the credibility of the only President we’ve got.

Bulls hit the rodeo clown quite roughly, do they not?

Hopefully between now and his next personal pronoun-fest (press conference), #OccupyResoluteDesk can figure out:

  • what actual national security skin the U.S. has in this game,
  • what international law fig leaf he will have to cover his six (Nobel Peace Prizes don’t count),
  • what the U.S. exit criteria are,
  • just what the flippy-flop we’re going to do if that Middle East reacts poorly to John Kerry’s attempt at an exorcism:

via Instapundit

Category: Barack Obama, humor, Syria

Does Unemployed Atheist @ChrisRenfrow Need to Work on His Anger Issues?

Posted on | September 6, 2013 | 91 Comments

Let’s begin with some helpful background:

After Kentucky atheist Chris Renfrow first showed up in my Twitter timeline today, I was informed that he was a high school English teacher in Louisville. But then I learned that he had recently been laid off from that position and someone pointed out that Renfrow’s LinkedIn profile indicated a rather . . . erratic work history, with five jobs in the past 10 years. Renfrow worked two years (2008-2010) at a school in Arizona, a job he left in October 2010.

October? Why does a teacher leave a job just a few weeks into the school year? But then again, why did Renfrow last only a year as a teacher in Jefferson County, Kentucky? Or only five months as a sales manager at J.C. Penney? Does he have . . . issues?


Renfrow’s argument that enforcing statutory rape law is unfair to people who have sex with minors and his “angry atheist” act may be correlated to some kind of underlying personality problem.

But whatever you do, don’t tell Chris Renfrow he should get help with his problems, because he might call you ugly names.

UPDATE: What a cheerful guy he is, huh?

Like I said, don’t try to tell angry atheist Chris Renfrow he should seek help for his problems, or he might call you ugly names.

 

Category: Education, Religion

Kentucky Atheist Teacher @ChrisRenfrow Wants to Repeal Statutory Rape Laws?

Posted on | September 6, 2013 | 184 Comments

The statutory age of consent in Kentucky is 16, the same as in Florida, where accused sex offender Kaitlyn Hunt is in jail awaiting trial for her lesbian affair with a 14-year-old girl. The “Free Kate” online crusade that Hunt’s parents started in May argues that Hunt, who was an 18-year-old high school senior at the time of her crimes, is a victim of homophobic prejudice. Hunt’s supporters say she should not be prosecuted because she and the younger girl were “peers,” and that having sex with a 14-year-old was merely a “high school romance.” So . . .

Say hello to a high school English teacher who got into a Twitter argument about whether sex with 14-year-olds should be illegal:

Self-described “proud atheist” Chris Renfrow teaches at Fern Creek Traditional High School in Louisville, Kentucky, and seems to have an oddly contemptuous attitude toward statutory rape laws:





After this Twitter argument had continued a while, someone started CC’ing me into the argument, along with Jeanette Runyon, who has been a real warrior in the fight to stop the “Free Kate” campaign to overturn Florida’s age-of-consent law. When someone in the argument pointed out that Renfrow is a high school teacher, I tried to warn him that he had wandered into a minefield, i.e., “Like, maybe this isn’t exactly a smart use of social media for you, hint, hint.”

Rather than take heed of his best interests, however, Renfrow then began to spew ad hominem attacks. Well, OK, then . . .

[DELETED: See update below]

Perhaps Kentucky’s Most Famous Atheist School Teacher™ would like to explain to the parents, taxpayers and school board members in Louisville why having sex with 14-year-olds shouldn’t be regarded as an actual crime, because, y’know, “grey area” and stuff.

[DELETED: See second update below]

The greatest thing about the First Amendment? Arrogant fools have the right to expose themselves as idiots, and then to whine like little bitches when they get called out for their foolishness.

UPDATE: According to Renfrow’s LinkedIn profile, he was recently laid off from his teaching job and is now seeking employment in the retail field, so I’ve deleted the contact information for his former employers. We wish Mr. Renfrow luck in seeking a retail position. Maybe they’re hiring at Toys ‘R’ Us or Chuck E. Cheese . . .

UPDATE II: Longtime commenter Diana Deeley complained about the use of the photo; so I deleted it. Of course, Diana didn’t see how Kentucky’s Most Famous Atheist School Teacher™ was deliberately taunting Christians — “superstitious,” he said to one — and personally attacking Jeanette Runyon, when he imagined he might conduct himself in such a haughty manner with impunity.

I may have more to say later, but for now am pleased to note the accuracy of my prophecy: Renfrow and his fellow atheists are now whining like little bitches, just as I predicted.

 

Category: Education, Kaitlyn Hunt, Kentucky, Sex

The Urge to Purge: Strange Events Inspired by Diana West Controversy

Posted on | September 6, 2013 | 73 Comments

Diana West, interviewed by The Blaze, July 17

In case you missed it, we have been intermittently following the controversy surrounding Diana West’s new book, American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character:

This is good publicity in the sense that there is no such thing as bad publicity. When you’re trying to attract crowds for a book signing, “controversial author” is excellent advertising, and I hope Diana is holding up amid the firestorm. However, it is beginning to appear that Ronald Radosh and David Horowitz have decided that it is not sufficient to attack Diana’s book. Now, conservative organizations must purge those who do not share their implacable hostility:

Clare M. Lopez, the excellent Middle East analyst and my Team B II colleague, has been fired for favorably mentioning my book in an essay.

Diana links to Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna quoting an e-mail describing how Lopez was informed this week of her termination:

The real shock came the following morning, though, on September 4, when Ms. Lopez received an email from Nina Rosenwald notifying her that her relationship with the Gatestone Institute had been terminated at the request of the Gatestone Board of Directors. On September 5, Ms. Rosenwald confirmed in an email sent to Ms. Lopez and others what some had already suspected, that her firing was due to her “choice of books to promote…,” a clear reference to Ms. Lopez’ citation of historical events from Ms. West’s book. Although Ms. Lopez also had cited about the same 1933 events to a second book, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, by Robert Conquest, for some reason, that reference did not seem to pose any issues for the Board. Only Ms. West’s book about the very same events seemed to irritate the Board, whose recently-appointed Chairman is former UN Ambassador John Bolton.

This is the “urge to purge,” a phrase Allen Sullivant often used to describe the battles within the Sons of Confederate Veterans that began during the mid-1990s, when SCV members angry over liberal attacks on Southern history became politically active.

Activists complained about what they called “eat, meet and retreat” leadership that refused to fight back against the re-location of monuments and re-naming of streets and schools, et cetera, that characterized the Culture Wars waged by the forces of Political Correctness in the South. The clash between activists (“hard-cores,” as they were frequently called) and more moderate leaders devolved into a series of purges and counter-purges, with some of the ousted leaders whining that their activist antagonists were dangerous racists, accusations that only served to further incite the SCV’s liberal enemies. In fact, to those familiar with the inner workings of the SCV, motives of personal ambition were far more relevant to these conflicts than any outsider could understand. Some people were so selfishly obsessed with their own status and prestige — including their authority as arbiters of what constituted “true” Confederate heritage — that they lost any sense of perspective and engaged in unnecessarily harmful tactics that damaged themselves as well as the organization.

Diana West’s critics seem to be engaged in quite a similar crusade against her. There is an “Us and Them” attitude, where neutrality can only be obtained through silence, where anyone who offers an opinion on the controversy is forced to choose sides, and where the basic tactical rule is, “War to the knife, knife to the hilt.”

My long friendship with Diana West obligates me to her defense, despite the fact that I also regard her antagonists as friends.

Since I first became aware of this unfortunate conflict, I’ve urged a truce, or at least a de-escalation of hostilities; instead it has turned into a relentless intellectual civil war with no end in sight.

Your big clue that something unexplained is happening here should be obvious from a glance at Clare Lopez’s biography:

Clare M. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on national defense, Islam, Iran, and counterterrorism issues. Currently a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, the Center for Security Policy and the Clarion Fund and vice president of the Intelligence Summit, she formerly was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011.

Whoa! Lopez’s neocon credentials were hitherto impeccable. Neither a Norquist-friendly libertarian nor a Buchananite paleocon could obtain a Lincoln Fellowship from the Strauss/Jaffa hive at Claremont. Ergo, this can only be explained as an internecine fight for supremacy between competing neocon cliques.

Grant the seriousness of the specific historical dispute — and I am certain of David Horowitz’s sincerity in this regard — what kind of backstage machinations were involved in the ouster of a Jaffa-certified neocon from the Gatestone Institute? Is this dispute so serious that these kinds of scorched-earth tactics are justified?

Gatestone Institute President Nina Rosenwald is on Twitter, and perhaps she should be required to explain how this happened.

It is important, I think, to see the crusade against Diana West in proper context. In 2007, National Review permitted Radosh to savage Blacklisted by History, M. Stanton Evans’s definitive defense of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Ann Coulter was obligated to defend Evans, one of her earliest mentors, whom she praised as having written “the greatest book since the Bible.” And Evans himself replied at length to Radosh, quoting Radosh’s review and observing:

This is going pretty heavy on the quotations, but they are offered to suggest what degree of trust may be placed in the assertions and paraphrases of Radosh as to the contents of my book. As these instances suggest, that degree of trust is roughly speaking zero. All of which is very bad, but from my standpoint by no means the worst of it. Far more disturbing is a recurring ad hominem element in Radosh’s comments — revealing a nasty penchant for turning a debate about substantive issues into a species of personal slander.

That is to say, Radosh has a demonstrable habit of harsh rhetoric against conservatives whose writings about Cold War history he disagrees with and, while I’ve never been nominated for any honors in the “Plays Well With Others” sweepstakes, I’m unaware that I’ve ever gotten anyone terminated from a think-tank gig, either.

As I see it — and I admit this may be unfair, but it is my honest impression of this lamentable affair — Radosh is turf-guarding.

Study his biography and it’s hard to avoid this impression. Radosh is a Ph.D. historian and CUNY professor emeritus and you get the idea that he resents these amateur interlopers encroaching on his professional turf. Given his background as a “Red Diaper baby” who subsequently co-authored a book about the Rosenberg espionage case that was extraordinarily controversial when it was published in 1983, you have to see Radosh as a sort of Coriolanus who, having earned his scars in Rome’s service, resents being compelled to condescend to the plebian mob. In other words, it is about respect.

OK, so if you are a conservative who wants to write a book about Cold War history — and especially about Communist subversion  — your first move, before even beginning to outline your proposal, must be to consult Radosh, describe your thesis, and ask his permission: “If I write this book, can I expect you to praise it?”

Otherwise, you could become a Controversial Author, which might help sell books, but makes life quite risky for your friends.

American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character — buy it now, before Ron Radosh can burn every copy in existence.

 

Category: Books, History, Intellectuals
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