Bob Belvedere — Hacked!
Posted on | August 8, 2013 | 36 Comments
Bob Belvedere at Camp of the Saints knows that the guidelines for “Rule 5” set a limit at the PG-13 line. Obviously, on Saturday, the hackers took control of Bob’s blog and posted photos of, uh, plus-size model Melissa Manning which are definitely Not Safe For Work.
Or so I’m told, by persons familiar with this dreadful cybercrime. An immediate investigation must be launched to find these hackers.
Melissa Manning is on Twitter. Bob Belvedere is, too.
Virginia Youth Basketball Coach Arrested on Sex Charge With Pre-Teen Girl
Posted on | August 7, 2013 | 21 Comments
Marlow Mikassa Afshartous, alias Marlow Talley, 39, of Reston, Virgina, has been arrested on charges of sexual assault and solicitation of child pornography. The investigation began two months ago and officials said Talley “had at least one sexual relationship with a female athlete under the age of 13. . . . Talley was a coach and trainer at Claude Moore Recreation Center, Georgetown Day School, and the now-closed Hoop Magic in Chantilly and Fairfax Stars.”
Georgetown Day School is rather posh. To have had an accused sex offender coaching there will send shivers through the D.C. elite.
‘Distributed Internet Reputational Attack’? Charles Carreon’s Self-Evident Absurdity
Posted on | August 7, 2013 | 29 Comments
Charles Carreon on Bloomberg News, March 2012.
Ken White at Popehat continues his reign of terror by offering to debate censorious douchebag Charles Carreon over the latter’s proposal that “Distributed Internet Reputational Attack” be recognized as a tort (i.e., grounds for a civil lawsuit).
Mr. Carreon’s problem is simple: He doesn’t understand how the Internet works. Also, he is a censorious douchebag.
Some writers on the Internet are more popular than others, which is perhaps not the same as saying that the more popular writers are always better writers than the less popular writers, but the saying that “content is king” expresses a basic truth: Someone who consistently cranks out good stuff will usually have more success online, especially if they have a strong sense of what readers want to read.
Ken White has built a large and loyal readership, especially among aficionados of legal lore and First Amendment issues. In addition to his vast legal erudition, he brings to his blog a capacity for diligent research and a lively sense of humor. Among the readers of Popehat are other successful bloggers with a legal background, including the very popular Instapundit. Ken White is, we might say, a blogger’s blogger, and this means that if he sets his sights on a vulnerable target, several other bloggers are likely to join the bombardment.
Charles Carreon evidently does not understand this and therefore, when Popehat helped turn Oatmeal’s hilarious beatdown of Carreon into a viral sensation last year, Carreon perceived this as an injustice which he now proposes to make a tort, “Distributed Internet Reputational Attack.” But who is to blame for this?
CHARLES CARREON IS TO BLAME.
Attempting to evade responsibility for one’s own errors by externalizing blame onto scapegoats is at the heart of Carreon’s problems. To describe the auto-douchebaggification process briefly:
- Idiot says, writes, or does something stupid.
- The stupidity appears on the Internet.
- Bloggers notice the stupidity, make fun of the idiot.
- “Hilarity ensues,” as they say. People in comments of blogs pile on further insults, blog readers look up the idiot’s phone number or e-mail address and express in vivid terms their disdain for the idiot’s stupidity.
- Idiot reacts stupidly, further hilarity ensues.
Charles Carreon’s reaction to his initial Oatmeal-v-FunnyJunk embarrassment was to double down and double down again. He ignored the First Law of Holes and kept digging, because it evidently never entered his mind that perhaps he was in the wrong.
Thin-skinned narcissists who cannot admit error — whose response to criticism is always to demonize their critics, and who therefore automatically externalize blame for their own mistakes — are always doing this sort of thing to themselves in the Internet age.
Look: If you are ever in a situation where your stupidity makes you a target, the correct thing to do is . . . nothing.
Don’t react. Don’t try to defend yourself. Don’t lash out at your tormenters. Just ignore it until it is over. Learn your lesson, avoid repetition of the error, and be glad it wasn’t worse.
People who merely describe your stupidity — however mocking and sarcastic their descriptions — have done you no wrong.
Consider the example of Jackie Mackie Paisley Passey, who described herself as “a very high-quality woman,” citing the reasons why men should crave her romantic companionship:
I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, but I’m also really sick of getting e-mailed several times a week by delusionally hopeful men who read my blog and think because I am *their* dream girl that I’ll therefore want them too.
Ace of Spades disassembled her with astonishing deftness:
Look, I want to make it clear I’m not saying this girl is ugly, per se. What she is is “plain.” She is what I call “Bad Irish.” The Irish look, but not the Good Irish look. The pasty skin, the elfin features… but not cute elfin, or better yet, hot elfin.
What you’re looking at here is a 5. A girl you wouldn’t notice in the average college or singles bar, except maybe if you had recently quit smoking, and noticed she had a fresh pack of Marlboro Reds held in her (indifferent) cleavage.
And you know something? However humiliated she was by that — and trust me, she deserved the humiliation — Ms. Passey figured out rather quickly that there was no way to “win” it. After an update or two where she tried to explain, defend or justify her stupidity, she walked away and eventually married a guy (“delusionally hopeful”?) and disappeared from the blogosphere.
Is Charles Carreon as smart as Jackie Mackie Paisley Passey?
Stay tuned to Popehat for further developments.
Deranged Cyberstalker Bill Schmalfeldt: Bats, Belfry, Some Assembly Required
Posted on | August 7, 2013 | 55 Comments
Bill Schmalfeldt ranting on YouTube
When last we left the strange saga of Bill Schmalfeldt, the self-described “brain-damaged troll,” his incessant barrage of Twitter gibberish had become so demonstrably crazy that there were fears for his safety. Apparently, however, the nice young men in white coats didn’t take Bill to the Funny Farm, or else the psychiatric staff at Spring Grove have granted him Internet access for therapeutic reasons, because he’s still ranting today. Now he’s got new reasons to rant — Ken White at Popehat has begun his dismantling of Schmalfeldt. A few excerpts:
Our special tonight is a disturbed self-styled journalist named Bill Schmalfeldt. . . .
He leaves no sense of what values he promotes, only of what groups and individuals he hates. There’s only one circumstance when you get a sense that he’s enjoying what he does, that he has a craft or a calling. That’s when he’s describing someone being raped, murdered, or otherwise abused, or when he’s pursuing the families of someone he hates. . . .
There are constant themes. The first is that, though he is nominally “progressive,” he delights in using homoerotic imagery and insults normally associated with homophobes to attack people he doesn’t like . . .
Second, despite being nominally “progressive,” he is perfectly willing to indulge in racism to revile people he doesn’t like. . . .
Third, he’s really, really into the rhetoric of violence and murder. . . .
Fourth, Schmalfeldt enjoys attacking the family of his political targets. . . .
Schmalfeldt . . . reported [Breitbart.com contributor Lee] Stranahan to the Dallas Police, the FBI, the District Attorney, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Texas Family Protective Services . . .
Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have principles. Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have values. Bill Schmalfeldt doesn’t have beliefs. Bill Schmalfeldt has enemies, and then nothing, a black and dank and empty void of sullenness. . . .
Read the whole brilliantly brutal thing and remember: This is just the first installment of an expected series of digital vivisections.
Two weeks ago, when Bill Schmalfeldt threatened me with a spurious copyright claim, I replied with 5,000 words to explain something really simple: BILL SCHMALFELDT IS CRAZY. He keeps providing more evidence of his irrationality, because he can’t help himself. This will not end well for him. He will either go to jail or go to the nuthouse, or else he’ll suffer a fatal neurological and physical breakdown.
If anyone were sincerely interested in Bill Schmalfeldt’s well-being, they’d be begging him to stop, but nobody who actually knows Bill Schmalfeldt likes Bill Schmalfeldt. He evidently lacks any concern for whatever remains of his own human dignity. None of his enemies could ever hate him as much Bill Schmalfeldt hates himself.
From Russia, With Hate: Sodomy Lobby Now Dictating U.S. Foreign Policy
Posted on | August 7, 2013 | 63 Comments
Last month, I wrote about Russia’s harsh backlash against gay-rights activism (“Russia Says ‘Nyet’ to Gay Adoptions“), and it turns out that this explains the cancellation of a scheduled summit:
The Wall Street Journal, among others, reportsthat President Barack Obama has decided to cancel a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s grant of temporary asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Yet that cannot possibly be the case. A few weeks ago, when Snowden arrived in Russia, Obamabrushed the issue aside: he was not “scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker,” he said.
Obama also downplayed the Snowden issue on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Tuesday, as the Daily Caller notes. But he played up the conflict over gay rights, citing Russia’s insistence that it will enforce its anti-gay laws during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi (and confusing them with the Summer Olympics in the process). He claimed that he had “been very clear” that gay rights “should transcend every country.” . . .
Read the rest by Joel Pollak at Breitbart News. The astute reader will perceive how the whole “neocon imperialist crusader” philosophy of Bush administration foreign policy, which Obama supposedly was going to reverse, has instead been simply converted to other purposes. Whereas the Republicans were going to spread “democracy” to the Middle East at the point of a bayonet, now the Obama regime aims to spread cultural liberalism by means of diplomatic hardball. This is a further sop to the same vocal minority that supports John Kerry’s recognition of foreign gay marriages for immigration purposes.
Can’t wait to see what the paleoconservatives have to say about this, and expect this may be a rare occasion of paleo/neo agreement.
America Loves You, Sama Elmasry!
LIVE AT FIVE: 08.07.13
Posted on | August 7, 2013 | 9 Comments
— compiled by Wombat-socho
TOP NEWS
Obama Tells Leno “We Don’t Have A Domestic Spying Program”

“You’re from the government and you’re here to help us? Right.”
NSA efforts are “mechanisms that can track a phone number or an e-mail address that is connected to a terrorist attack … That information is useful.”
Former President Bush Has Surgery For Artery Blockage
W going home today
Fort Hood Shooter Admits To Killings Right Away
Claimed to be doing it to protect Taliban in Afghanistan
POLITICS
SecDef Hagel Cuts Civilian Furlough Days To Six From Eleven
Defense Secretary Hagel at a NATO meeting in Brussels
Money gained from shifting money between accounts
Suspect In Alabama Terror Plot Changes Plea To Guilty
Romney Warns Against Government Shutdown
Nurse Says Filner Demanded Date In Exchange For Helping Wounded Veteran
Judge Cuts Wikileaker’s Potential Sentence To 90 Years
Facebook CEO Calls For Immigration Reform
Despite City’s Bankruptcy, 16 Compete In Detroit Mayoral Primary
Rep. Tom Cotton’s Entry Promises Hot Senate Race In Arkansas
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Oil Mixed In Asian Trade: NYMEX $105.36, Brent $108.08
US Charges BoA With Fraud Over Mortgage-Backed Securities
Fed May Cut Bond Buying As Early As Next Month
India Shares Open Lower On Rupee Weakness
Icahn Increases Stake In Dell As Shareholder Vote Nears
Stocks Fall As Retailers Disappoint
Facebook Changes News Feed To Kill Updates From Your Boring Friends
Microsoft Unveils Push-Button App Generator For WinPhone
IBM To License Power Chips To Keep Them Relevant
Google Revamps Search To Feature In-Depth Articles
Nokia Mocks iPhone Camera In Lumia 925 Advert
SPORTS
Verlander, Kelly Help Tigers Extend Winning Streak To Ten

Justin Verlander delivers
Detroit beats Cleveland again, 5-1
Blackhawks’ Shaw To Auction Stitches For Cancer
KU Coach Won’t Shut Door On NBA Future
Sale, White Sox Topple Skidding Yankees
“Fountain Mom” Makes Giant Splash At Royals Game
Harrison’s Walk-Off Homer Lifts Pirates Past Fish, 4-3
Lolo Jones Toys With Drug Testers
Tensions Flare And Benches Clear After Harper Plunked; Nationals Lose Anyway
FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Meryl Streep To Play Chief Elder In “The Giver”

Meryl Streep
Joining Jeff Bridges in movie version of Lois Lowry novel
Usher’s Son Hospitalized In ICU After Nearly Drowning
Dustin Hoffman’s Cancer Treatment Successful
Terrence Howard’s Ex Gets Restraining Order After Being Sucker Punched
Donald Glover To Create, Star In Music-Themed FX Comedy Series Project
Raven-Symone Quietly Outs Herself As Lesbian
HBO Developing Comedy Series To Star Issa Rae
Oprah Winfrey Finally Comments On The Paula Deen Mess
Amanda Bynes’ Mother Asks Judge To Close Courtroom For Next Hearing
Depp, Bruckheimer Blame Critics For “Lone Ranger” Flop
GQ Talks Porn With “Lovelace”‘s Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard
FOREIGNERS
Major Fire Closes Kenya Airport
Drone Strike Kills Six Suspected Militants In Yemen
Blast Kills 11 Children At Pakistani Soccer Game
Protesters Head To Thai Parliament Before Amnesty Debate
Japan Launches Biggest Warship Since WW2
Norks Vow To Reopen Kaesong Complex Minutes After ROK Threat To Close It Forever
Mass Demonstration In Tunis Demands Islamist Government Resign
Muslim Leaders: Let Telangana Protests Not Dampen Eid
Mugabe Party Vows To Boost Black Ownership Of Zimbabwe Economy
Argentine President Fernandez Renews Claims To Falklands At UN
BLOGS & STUFF
Troglopundit: Maybe Congress Could Just Avoid The Whole Obamacare Mess By Cutting Their Hours To Part Time Like Every Other Employer In America
Doug Powers: RNC Threatens To Cancel Debates On CNN, NBC Over Hillary Agitprop; Networks Yawn
Twitchy: “Know Why Men Like Boobs?” Ace Teaches Amanda Marcotte The Facts Of Life With Hilarious Results
Victor Davis Hanson: Obama’s Watergates
Weasel Zippers: Charges Filed Against Suspect In Benghazi Attack
PJ Tatler: POTUS To Leno – “Spies? What Spies?”
Stephen Kruiser: Think Progress Thinks White Economic Supremacy Same As 1963, Or Something
Schweikart & Folsom: Obama’s False History Of Economic Development
Power Line: Recovery’s Over – Was It Good For You?
Marginal Revolution: Has The US Labor Market Adjusted?
Atlas Shrugs: Obama To Meet With MuBro Officials In The White House?
John McCormack: The One Thing Wendy Davis Said She Knew About Gosnell Is Wrong
Peggy Noonan: Why Christie Is Wrong
LOL! @NealRauhauser’s Demand to @Twitter: ‘No More Fun of Any Kind!’ UPDATE: Neal Deletes His Plan (Lulz)
Posted on | August 6, 2013 | 90 Comments
What a buzzkill this guy is, huh? So there I was, having stirred up a hornet’s nest with my “atheist sex scandal” post. My quarrel with a young renegade Baptist named Sarah Jones had just reached the point where the whole “neo-Confederate” thing came up and — boom! — somebody sends me a link to a Pastebin document in which Neal Rauhauser outlines his plan to ban all his enemies from Twitter:
Step 1. Don’t tweet much for over a year
Step 2. Build enormous Twitter Recording Machine, capture 2.8 million tweets
Step 3. Apply analytics using Maltego, Gephi, SplunkStorm, and JGAAP, nowhere to hide
Step 4. Build tweet to screen shot system, capture images of over 9,000 keyword hits.
Step 5. Wait patiently for long rumored Twitter rule change:
https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311-the-twitter-rules
Targeted Abuse: You may not engage in targeted abuse or harassment. Some of the factors that we take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be targeted abuse or harassment are:
* if you are sending messages to a user from multiple accounts;
* if the sole purpose of your account is to send abusive messages to others;
* if the reported behavior is one-sided or includes threats
Step 6. Publicly identify just some of the lucky permaban sweepstakes finalists
Then the list, which begins with Aaron Walker and Ali Akbar and continues on to include EVERYBODY NEAL RAUHAUSER HATES, among them Patterico, John Hoge, Mandy Nagy, and of course, me, followed by the completed plan:
Step 7. Provide a sample of 5,200 file names, watch the frantic deletion begin.
Step 8. Wait for dawning realization that deletion doesn’t matter when there is a long evidence trail.
Step 9. Record all the panic. Because lulz.
“Panic,” Neal? “Lulz”? Coming as it does from the notorious perpetrator of TwitterGate, and considering that several of the accounts you list have thousands of followers, compared to the 11 people currently following @NealRauhauser, I’m guessing that maybe the folks at Twitter won’t need much help figuring out who is the prime candidate for the “lucky permanban sweepstakes.”
Hey, @Support: Is trying to get all your enemies banned from @Twitter "abuse"? http://t.co/VeehT6Ne2h His name is Neal Rauhauser. #tgdn
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) August 7, 2013
Now, you gentlemen will excuse me, but there’s a young renegade Baptist — a regular spitfire — who simply demands to know my opinions on 19th century history. It’s so hard being me.
UPDATE: I’m told that the Pastebin of Rauhauser’s Sooper Sekrit Plan to Ban From Twitter EVERYBODY NEAL HATES has now been deleted, which is something you learn to expect. The dude has deleted more Internet content than most people create in a lifetime.
Notice how Neal expected that, by “publicly identifying” his enemies (as if we didn’t already know Neal hates us) he would inspire “frantic deletion” and “panic.” Instead, within an hour or so of my calling attention to his list of “lucky permaban sweepstakes finalists,” it was Neal who did the panicking and “frantic deletion.”
“Because lulz,” indeed.
Oh, also, Neal’s now up to 12 Twitter followers.
Ooh! Another Atheist Sex Scandal?
Posted on | August 6, 2013 | 256 Comments
Karen Stoltznow and Ben Radford at a December 2012 conference.
You may recall that in 2011 Rebecca Watson — the total smokin’ hotness of atheist chickdom — celebrated her victimhood after some guy tried to hit on her at an atheist conference. The silliness of it all prompted Vox Day to comment on the misery of atheist guys:
No wonder they’re so furious at God. He created all those lovely women with those beautiful breasts and they aren’t even allowed to even talk to them.
Basically, atheism seems to attract a lot of game-deficient Gamma dudes who figure atheist chicks are easy (correct), but then presume this might mean some hot action for Gammas (incorrect).
OK, so fast-forward, and the New Total Smokin’ Hotness of Atheist Chickdom, Karen Stoltznow steps forward to tell her tale:
Sexual harassment is an uncomfortable topic to discuss with colleagues, especially when you’re the victim. . . .
(As if it is easy for the guy she accuses to discuss it.)
According to gossip about me, I gave him mixed-signals, I led him on, I’m flirtatious, and I’m a dirty little slut. . . .
(Is this true? I mean, was it only “gossip”?)
Five months after I lodged my complaint I received a letter that was riddled with legalese but acknowledged the guilt of this individual. They had found evidence of “inappropriate communications” and “inappropriate” conduct at conferences. . . . They assured me they were disciplining the harasser but this turned out to be a mere slap on the wrist. . . .
(He wasn’t burned at the stake.)
Those who didn’t know the extent of the harassment reacted as though we simply don’t play well together in the sandbox. “Why don’t you two just get over it and move on!” The matter was misconstrued as a lover’s tiff, or that we were a couple in an on again, off again relationship. . . .
(Were you ever a “couple” at all?)
To some people the news didn’t come as much of a surprise. They “knew” there was something wrong, especially with the benefit of hindsight. “I thought something was up when you two stopped working together.” Others felt they could finally admit to me what they think about him. “I never liked him.” “I’ve always thought he was a creepy guy!”, “He’s a weirdo!” and, “I unfriended him on Facebook because of the sexist shit he says and the perverted stuff he posts.” One woman confessed, “No wonder my female friends roll their eyes at me when I tell them he’s single!” . . .
(OK, I’ll stipulate this guy is creepy. But you have not yet told us whether you were ever in a “couple” with him, or explained why people may have thought you were.)
This man is a predator who collects girls of a certain “type”. His targets are chubby, shy, lonely, and insecure, just like I used to be.
(Oh. You used to be his “type,” but now you’re the Total Smokin’ Hotness of Atheist Chickdom, and so — under the bus!)
In the early days I looked up to him and was flattered that he seemed to respect my work. I quickly spotted some red flags but I disregarded them. These became too big to ignore, so I called it all off. The rejection was ego shattering to him at first, and then met with disbelief.
(Hell hath no fury like a Gamma dumped.)
This was followed by incessant communication of a sexual nature, including gifts, calls, emails, letters, postcards, and invites to vacation with him in exotic places so we could “get to know each other again”. He wouldn’t leave me alone. This wasn’t love. It was obsession. His desperation only increased when I met another man. He continued his harassment as though my boyfriend (who is now my husband) didn’t even exist.
(Excuse me for interrupting again — now we’re getting to the good part — but why not have your boyfriend tell the creep to buzz off?)
From late 2009 onwards I made repeated requests for his personal communication to cease but these were ignored. He began manipulating the boundaries by contacting me on the pretext of it being work-related. Then came the quid pro quo harassment. He would find opportunities for me within the company and recommend me to television producers, but only if I was nicer to him. One day the company offered me an honorary position that I’d worked hard for, but he warned me that he had the power to thwart that offer. I threatened to complain to his employer, but he bragged that another woman had accused him of sexual harassment previously and her complaints were ignored. According to him, she had been declared “batshit crazy”. Then, he saw me at conferences and took every opportunity to place me in a vulnerable position. This is where the psychological abuse turned physical and he sexually assaulted me on several occasions.
“Officer, arrest that man!”
Well, isn’t that what you think Karen Stoltznow would have done? If somebody “sexually assaulted” you, wouldn’t you call the cops?
For some reason, she didn’t, but instead complained to her employer, who gave her sort of a runaround, and she published her account without ever naming her harasser. But it seems everybody in Atheist World knows this creep, and his modus operandi is not exactly a secret, so arch-Darwinist P.Z. Myers outs him:
Something strange happened after I posted this. People started emailing me. They all said the same thing: they knew exactly who the harasser was, and they named him, and eerily, they all named exactly the same name, and they were all 100% on the money. I’m starting to believe in psychic powers.
The accused harasser was Ben Radford.
Wait. Maybe it’s not psychic powers, it’s privileged ignorance. Almost all of the people writing to me are women, and some of them also tell tales of their husbands or boyfriends not believing them at first.
Great: “Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and a Research Fellow with the non-profit educational organization the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry,” and he is also apparently “a predator who collects girls … [who] are chubby, shy, lonely, and insecure.”
Sorry about your reputation, Mr. Creepy Obsessive Stalker.
Perhaps you can tell us why people thought you and Karen Stoltznow were a “couple” and what those “sexual assaults” were about.
Have a nice day. And good luck praying to nothing.
UPDATE: I Tweeted this post to the attention of some atheists, and set of World War III. Also, I find myself accused in the comments of “blaming the victim,” whereas my point generally was that atheist guys are creeps, and no woman is safe around them. Attending an atheist conference is kind of like having a sleepover with Julian Assange, it seems, but let’s not revisit that controversy just now, eh?
UPDATE II: A feminist blog comments:
As other atheist feminists might be unable to forget, Center For Inquiry is a fairly large skeptic notprofit which came under fire after CEO Ron Lindsay made some pretty thoughtless comments during his “welcoming” address at the Women In Secularism 2 conference held in DC this past Spring. CFI still hasn’t apologized or taken action against Lindsay. Here’s to hoping they have something more to say now that we know they’ve been doling out honoraria to an individual accused of spending 4 years making an equally famous female skeptic’s life a living hell.
So, it’s all-misogyny, all-the time with these guys, and you might think this would cause some of these “atheist feminists” to reconsider their worldview, go to church and fix me a sammich.
But no. Once they go atheist feminist, they never go back . . .
Or something. Rebecca Watson denounced the Center For Inquiry this year, because those atheist men are all hateful misogynists.
This means no more sammiches for you atheist guys, either.
And next? I guess there will be Atheist Lesbian Feminists conference, which then will split into Maoist and Stalinist sects, followed by the rise of a genuinely radical Underground Atheist Feminist terrorist group, blowing up shit and issuing jargon-laden manifestos.
The progress of such tendencies always follows a historical pattern.
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