The Other McCain

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

Fire Matt Patricia?

Posted on | December 14, 2022 | 1 Comment

The New England Patriots beat the Arizona Cardinals on Monday Night Football, a victory that moves the Patriots into the 7th spot in the playoff scenario. At 7-6 with four games left to play, right now they’d be the third wild card in the AFC, thanks to their tiebreakers against the Jets and Chargers (both also 7-6). It’s been a rough season for New England fans, primarily because the Patriots offense has been a flaming dumpster fire of ineptitude and inconsistency. The blame for this has been focused largely on assistant coach Matt Patricia, whom head coach Bill Belichick assigned the duties of offensive play-caller, even though Patricia had no previous background that would qualify him for this job.

How bad has the offense been for New England this season? So bad that, last week, Boston sportswriter Greg Bedard was hearing from his sources that Belichick’s job could be on the line in the Monday game — beat the Cardinals, or else it’s retirement time. The good news is, the Patriots won. The bad news is, the offense still sucks. And while the fans and sports talk-radio personalities in the football-crazed Boston market have mainly pointed the finger of blame at Patricia, many of them have also noticed that the responsibility ultimately rests on Belichick’s shoulders. It was Belichick’s choice, after longtime Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels left to take the head coaching job with the Raiders, to hire Patricia, a former assistant for New England who failed as head coach during a three-season stint with the Detroit Lions. So if Patricia can’t get the job done running the offense, it’s Bill’s fault for hiring him.

Despite Monday’s victory, the heat is still on. To make it to the playoffs, the Patriots will have to win at least two, and probably three, of their remaining four games — Sunday on the road against the Raiders, Christmas Eve at home against the Cincinnati Bengals (9-4 and the defending AFC champions), New Year’s Day at home against the Miami Dolphins (8-5), and Jan. 8 in Buffalo against the 10-3 AFC East-leading Bills. They’re facing Murderer’s Row, really. In their last four games against the Dolphins, the Patriots are 0-4. In their last six games against the Bills, the Patriots are 1-5. So even if New England can survive against the Raiders and pull some kind of miracle upset against the Bengals, they’ll still be facing an uphill battle in their two final games against AFC East rivals. And have I mentioned their offense sucks?

New England’s rudimentary offense has been a chore to watch all season and the regression of sophomore quarterback Mac Jones is concerning. We recently said Bill Belichick’s experiment with Patricia as a play-caller has been a predictable failure, and it’s a take shared by many who cover the Patriots.
But the criticism has ramped up in recent weeks with the Patriots’ teetering on the edge of playoff contention. Fueled by in- and post-game outbursts by players — and comments from the likes of Cardinals defensive coordinator Vance Joseph — the calls for Patricia to lose his job never have been louder. And Monday night’s 27-13 road win over the Arizona Cardinals likely won’t change anything.

Exactly. Mac was the best rookie QB in the league last season, and he’s shown occasional flashes of excellence this year, despite missing three games with an ankle injury, but overall the Patriots offense has had a distinct fragrance of manure, to put it as politely as possible.

Monday night’s game illustrated the problem pretty well, If you just look at the statistics, Mac had a pretty good game — completing 24 of 35 passes (69%), marred by just one interception that wasn’t his fault (his arm got hit by a Cardinals defender while he was throwing) — and he made a few excellent throws, twice hitting tight end Hunter Henry on seam route for big gains, and overall made 13 first downs passing. But it was the defense that really won the game for New England, recording six sacks and adding an interception and a “scoop-and-score” fumble recovery for a touchdown. On the offensive side, the play-calling was . . . well, here’s Evan Lazar’s take:

It’s a work-in-progress, to put it charitably. Because of problems with their offensive line, New England has to do something to keep Mac from getting buried by blitzers, and part of the answer that Patricia has apparently found is to run a lot of screen passes. So if the opponents get too aggressive in rushing the passer, the screen pass takes advantage of that aggressiveness. And while these plays gained an average less than five yards per attempt Monday, they helped keep the Cardinals defense off-balance. And future Patriots opponents, watching the film of this game, will have to take this into account, so it may yield dividends going forward. But it’s WEEK FOURTEEN, people! Your offense shouldn’t be operating at a training-camp level this late in the season.

Oh, the agonies of being an NFL fan! Your team’s in playoff contention, and you find yourself not only rooting for your team to win, but also cheering for their potential rivals to lose. Like, it’s important to me this coming Sunday that the Lions beat the Jets and the Titans beat the Chargers. But then there are other games — Dolphins vs. Bills and Browns vs. Ravens — where I’m not certain which outcome would help the Patriots more. The main thing, of course, is that the Patriots beat the Raiders. Just win this one game, and then New England will be 8-6 with three games to go. And even if you say there’s a near-zero chance that the Patriots will win any of those last three games, miracles still happen in the NFL, and it’s at least theoretically possible that New England could win them all, to finish 11-6. For that matter, the Bills might lose all four of their remaining games, to finish 10-7, so that the Patriots still have a shot at the AFC East title — in theory, at least: “Never say never.”

Speaking of miracles, have you heard about Marcus Jones? A diminutive 5-foot-8 defensive back, Jones was drafted in the third round by the Patriots this year and was mainly expected to play on special teams his rookie season, but then the defense suffered some injuries, and the offense needed some help, too, so Marcus (to distinguish him from the three other players named Jones on the New England roster) has become dang-near the proverbial “60-Minute Man.” On defense, Marcus was in for 67 plays (89% of defensive snaps), recording seven solo tackles, two pass break-ups and an interception, and he also appeared on offense as a receiver for eight plays (14% of offensive snaps), catching one pass for 12 yards, not to mention special teams, where he returned two kickoffs and a punt for a combined 54 yards. The rookie made NFL history:

There are glimmers of light amid the pervading gloom. Even if the offense sucks, there is still room to hope. Just beat the Raiders.

And yeah, of course, eventually, fire Matt Patricia.



 

Category: Football

In The Mailbox: 12.13.22

Posted on | December 13, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.13.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Today’s illo is based on the manga Useless Ponko, which hasn’t officially been released in the U.S. but fan translations exist online. It’s a cute story about a widower whose kids are concerned about him – so they buy him a housekeeping robot. Unfortunately, Ponko is a nearly obsolescent model (and not very good at her job), but old Yoshioka becomes fond of her.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

It’s just one of those days.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Biden’s Nuclear Waste Puppy Sam Brinton Got Fired, The Bad Guy, and Elon Musk takes on Nasty, Corrupt, Leftist John Brennan
Twitchy: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) Pwns Trans Activist Over “Extremist Rhetoric” On Twitter, also, John Hayward Delves Into The Left’s Escalating Campaign To Undermine Parents At Kids’ Expense
Louder With Crowder: Elon Musk tweets bunny emoji, sends woke scientist down rabbit hole of conspiracies, also, Disgraced CNN producer pleads guilty to despicable child sex crime
Vox Popoli: James Delingpole Catches Up, The Failure of Binary, Joel Osteen Preaches Satanic Magick, and They Call Him “Teacher”

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: America’s Roving Goals for Ukraine, also, The Prophet of Brexit: An Interview with Maurice Glasman
American Greatness: Historic Christopher Columbus Statue in Philadelphia to be Uncovered for First Time in Two Years, DeSantis 2024 Is a Trap, and Now What?
American Thinker: The United States of Fascist America, also, Controlling the Department of Justice
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Fusion News
Babalu Blog: Cuba’s state-run telecom runs out of paper, unable to send out bills, New denunciation made against Cuba’s slave doctor program at the UN and the International Criminal Court, and Peru to Mexico: It’s none of your business
BattleSwarm: Dispatches From The War Against Child Genital Mutilation, also, Dear National Review: El Paso Is Not A “Town”
Behind The Black: Ariane 5 successfully launches three satellites, InSight still going, but barely, Another space station company, ThinkOrbital, enters the competition, and Today’s blacklisted Americans: Archaeologists go underground to practice their research
Cafe Hayek: Inclusion?
CDR Salamander: No, the Military Dragged Itself in to Politics
Chicago Boyz: Another One Bites the Dust
Da Tech Guy: This Explains a Lot about Pre-Musk Twitter, Report from Louisiana: Shreveport finally gets a Republican mayor!, A Simple Guide to Identify What’s Biblical (or traditional) in The Chosen and What Isn’t, and Shining light on Penn State’s foibles
Don Surber: NYT’s Big Lie About a Rape, Musk is the safe Trump, and Canadians wait 7 times longer than Americans to see a doctor
First Street Journal: Killadelphia
Gates Of Vienna:  Time to Dissolve the People, Will This World Cup Never End?, Paris is Burning, and Movin’ Out
The Geller Report: Democrat Mega Donor Ponzi-Crook Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested Before He Could Testify Today
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, NGC 6530 and I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
Hollywood In Toto: Bill Maher Schools Biologist Richard Dawkins on COVID Basics, also, Why Smile Made a Small Fortune from Horror Nation
The Lid: Did Biden’s Removal Of 251 Million Barrels Of Oil From The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Impact Prices At All?
Legal Insurrection: Inflation: CPI Rose 0.1% in November, Prices Increased 7.1% Over Last 12 Months, BlackRock’s ESG Policies Push Arizona to Divest Funds From the Investment Firm, New York City Looking for ‘Badass’ Rat Czar, But Why? Democrat Mega-Donor Crypto King Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested In Bahamas Preventing His Congressional Testimony, and Millions of Americans Mistakenly Told They Were Approved for Student Debt Forgiveness
Nebraska Energy Observer: Christianity, Free Speech, and Founding Principles, also, Have you heard?
Outkick: Mississippi State Football Coach Mike Leach Passes Away At 61, Former Wisconsin, UCF Football Player Dies Of Cardiac Arrest While Jogging Aged 25, J.J. Watt Calls Out Chipotle – Make Your Burritos Big Again, Mississippi State Will Play In Bowl Game After Passing Of Mike Leach, and The NBA Has Made It Official: Michael Jordan Is Better Than LeBron James
Power Line: Our border is gone, Support For Trump Collapsing, and Another Crash at the Intersectionality
Shark Tank: Wassermann-Schultz All But Blames DeSantis For Florida’s 83,000 COVID Deaths
Shot In The Dark: In Which I Pummel, also, Return On Investment
STUMP: Public pension watch: Illinois TRS deeper in the hole, other funds to follow
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 1)
This Ain’t Hell: Pentagon fails audit. For the fifth straight time., Retired Lieutenant General predicts Crimea liberation by August 2023, and S B-F Jailed, Charges Pending
Transterrestrial Musings: The Issue Is Settled, Twitter, New MH370 Findings, and “Your House Is Glass”
Victory Girls: Elon Musk and the Bunny Emoji That Triggered QAnon Terror
Volokh Conspiracy: “Plain Text”
Watts Up With That: “THIS AGREEMENT WILL BE GOOD FOR ENRON STOCK!!” (Enron’s Kyoto memo turns 25), also, Polar bear habitat update
Weasel Zippers: CNN: GOP Opposes Griner Prisoner Swap Because She’s a “Black Lesbian”, WH National Security Advisor: Biden’s Border Policies Doing An “Effective Job”, Incoming House Democrat Vice Chair Ted Lieu: “Irrelevant” If Twitter Was Suppressing Speech, and NY Times Declares John Fetterman One Of The “Most Stylish” People Of 2022
The Federalist: Leftists Can’t Quit Twitter., American Girl Exploits Adolescent Awkwardness To Suggest Being A Girl Isn’t Good Enough, Did Elon Musk Spend $44 Billion To Say The Truth About His Son?, and Twitter Files Overshadow The Bigger Scandal – FBI Lied To Tech Giants To Interfere In Election
Mark Steyn: Looking the Other Way, A Lesson from Luke, and Strikes and Snow Days

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 12.12.22

Posted on | December 13, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.12.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
A View From The Beach: Army Returns To Its 1980s Slogan
357 Magnum: Disney’s CEO Doesn’t Like The Second Amendment
EBL: Fusion Breakthrough?, So far, Musk is not backing down to the woke left, and Sam Bankman Fried Arrested In The Bahamas
Twitchy: Scott Kelly Tries Shaming Elon Musk Over Pronouns, Gets Rekt, also, Vindman’s Dependapotamus Rages At NBC For Telling The Truth
Louder With Crowder: Customer makes mistake of attacking Popeye’s employee, catches a side of these hands instead of mashed potatoes, Elon Musk slaughters another progressive sacred cow, declares his new preferred anti-Fauci pronouns, and ‘Neither good nor kind’: Elon Musk launches woke astronaut into orbit over Fauci, truth about pronouns
Vox Popoli: Death at the World Cup, Twitter Confessions, Free Trade is Dead, and Drawing Lines in the Sand

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Women in Pants
American Conservative: US Military Going To The Dogs, Trading in Weakness, and Sex & The Final Christian Generation
American Greatness: Where’s the Outrage?, A Credible Conservative Warrior Emerges to Lead the RNC, Arizona Governor Stacks Shipping Containers to Create Makeshift Border Wall, and Our Parasitic Generation
American Thinker: Dementia: 2022’s Word of the Year, Raiding Arizona, Cooking the Books: Why Republicans Always Come up Short, and Maricopa or Die
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: ‘Cuban Privilege’ book presentation at FIU met by protests and rebukes by Cuban exiles, Cuban dictatorship receives visiting delegation of Democrats from Congress, Twitter and Brazil, too?, and Cuba’s Public Transportation Minister admits gross failure of the entire system he directs
Baldilocks: Not So Crazy After All
BattleSwarm: VAMPIRE: America’s New Discount Technical Rocket System, also, Melitopol Strike, Black Market Stingers, And Gusts From The Fog of War
Behind The Black: Bill imposes new and odious regulation on private space stations and satellites, Remembering Apollo 17, fifty years after the last manned mission to the Moon, NOAA once again over-predicts the hurricane count, NASA extends Boeing’s contract to produce more SLS rockets, and Today’s blacklisted American: Judge orders Philadelphia to stop blacklisting Christopher Columbus
Cafe Hayek: On Social Media Suppression of Expression, Freeman Essay #146: “It Just Ain’t So!”, and Are Free Traders Guilty of Naïve Globalism?
CDR Salamander: A Week of Maritime Good Tidings? on Midrats, also, So, I guess it will be “Sino-Saudi” as “Saudi-Sino” is Even Harder to Say
Chicago Boyz: Not Just Invention, But Deployment
Da Tech Guy: Satan clubs are coming to an elementary school near you!, Twitter Files Part 4 Now going out, plus the key tweet outside of it., I Must Admit I Feel Honored, and Behold Cerberus, the three-headed beast who wants to rule all of us
Don Surber: We owe Brittney Griner nothing, We don’t have a free press, and The new castrato
First Street Journal: Why would anyone want to become a cop these days?, also, Have we learned nothing?
Gates Of Vienna: Verdict in the Leonie Case, Qatar Talk, The Muslim Brotherhood in Austria, Part 4, and Thoughts After a Visit to Poland
The Geller Report: AZ Whistleblower: Chain Of Custody For OVER 298,942 Maricopa County Ballots Delivered To Runbeck On Election Day Did Not Exist, Employees Allowed To Add Family Members’ Ballots Without Any Documentation, Elon Musk Invites Banned Stanford Professor to Twitter Headquarters, The “Merchant of Death” We Traded Loves America More Than Brittney Griner Does, and Court Permanently Blocks Biden Administration’s Transgender Mandate
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Perseus A, Another Trip Gets Cancelled, Messier 43, and I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
Hollywood In Toto: Empire of Light Is a Glorious Visual Feast (But Not Much Else), Sebastian Maniscalco Goes Nuclear on Woke Schools, Bill Maher Praises Twitter Files Journalist Bari Weiss, The Free Press, and AOC’s Climate Change Doc To the End Scores Just $80 Per Theater
The Lid:  Country Star John Rich, Ben Carson, And Larry Elder Launch Bank For Patriots, What Qatar’s World Cup Learned From Hitler’s Olympics, and They Helped Zuckerberg Skew 2020 Voting And Have Started Working On 2024
Legal Insurrection: Access to Pomona College ‘Safe Space’ Allegedly Based on Race, University of Vermont Hosts ‘Sex Toy Bingo’ Using Tuition Dollars, Retired Navy SEAL Detransitions, Shares His Experience, And Has A Warning For America, Finally, The Gibson’s Bakery Family Has Been Paid By Oberlin College, and Legal Insurrection 2022 Year-End Report And Fundraiser
Nebraska Energy Observer: Laughter is good like, also, Gaudete Sunday, Advent III
Outkick: Brittney Griner Returns To America With A Completely Different Appearance, Kyler Murray Goes Down With Non-Contact Injury On Monday Night Football, 12U Football Player Jeremiah Johnson Leaves The Internet Shook, Brock Purdy’s Dad Gets Emotional After Seeing His Son Throw TD Pass, Jemele Hill’s New Book Has Sold Just 5,034 Copies Proving To Be Her Latest Epic Failure, and Former Soccer Player Who Refused to Kneel Allowed to Continue With Lawsuit
Power Line: The Sewer of Elite Education, Silence of the shams, and The Daily Chart: ESG on the Rocks
Shark Tank: Byron Daniels – House GOP Should Make No Major Deals With Democrats
Shot In The Dark: Let Them Eat Pasta!, also, Dissonance, Cognitively
STUMP: Central States Teamsters Pension Fund finally gets its bailout money, as planned — now what?
This Ain’t Hell: Vietnam Veteran tries to get Veterans Wall away from Walmart restrooms, Col Joe Kittinger, who made a parachute jump from space, dies aged 94, Army officer couple taking “woke” to new level, 20-17 Army, and Air Force future
Transterrestrial Musings: Loss Of A Pioneer, Oops, The Fusion Constant, and My Thoughts On Artemis
Victory Girls: Tis The Season For Dumping On Christmas, Elon Musk Claps At Fauci And The Deep State Claps Back, and Harry and Meghan: On The “Strategic Charm Offensive”
Volokh Conspiracy: No Gag Order Against Extrajudicial Commentary in AR-15-Related Intellectual Property Case, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin Seeks to Expand Housing by Curbing Zoning, and America’s Rifle
Watts Up With That: Looking For the Official Party Line on Energy Storage, Green Raw Deal: Climate Fanaticism Has Put Us Full Throttle On The Highway To Hell, and Have Embarrassing Failed Predictions Taught Climate Scientists to be Cautious?
Weasel Zippers: Senate Democrats Propose $350 Million Annually For Abortion Travel, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) Gushes Over Biden’s Foreign Policy, Elton John Announces He’s Leaving Twitter, Outraged Over Lack Of Censorship, and Shocker: Biden Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg A Climate Change Hypocrite
The Federalist: Twitter Employees Found Trump Didn’t Violate Policies, Then Banned Him Anyway, Maricopa County’s ‘Maladministration’ Of 2022 Elections Cost Kari Lake The Governor’s Race, Lawsuit Claims, 10 Troublemakers Who Belong On Santa’s Naughty List This Year, American Girl’s Politicized Product Lines Began Long Before Its Latest Gender-Bending Book, and High School African American Studies Program Is Less History, More Marxism And Voodoo
Mark Steyn: Agony of Defeat: Postwar Japan and The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Mark Steyn Show – live Monday to Thursday!, and Tal Bachman: Happy 100th Birthday, Charles Schulz

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The ‘Misinformation’ Crisis

Posted on | December 12, 2022 | 2 Comments

Daniel Greenfield of Frontpage Magazine has a YouTube video discussing how the Left’s recent obsession with “misinformation” follows the pattern of manufactured “crises,” e.g., climate change. Our friend Daniel should get the David Horowitz Freedom Center to provide him with professional video production assistance, but the point he’s making is very important, as he discusses in this article:

At the root of most political crimes are bad ideas. And at the root of the #TwitterGate was the notion, widely spread by the political class and the media, that “disinformation”, essentially propaganda, posed a critical threat to our society and had to be urgently restricted.
The ‘inciting incident’ for this argument was Trump’s victory in 2016. The more the media blew him into a threat to mankind, the stronger the argument became for urgently regulating speech. With the combination of Russiagate and garden variety demonization, the goal of making speech into a threat was achieved.
Everything that followed was corruptly inevitable.
The idea that unregulated speech was “disinformation” or “misinformation” and that no society could survive free speech was widely dispersed among the educated classes. It was eventually taken on faith.
I have frequently said in the past that the ability to define the problem is also the ability to define the solution. It’s one of those things that the Left does really well. It invents a crisis, homelessness, global warming, racism, speech, gives it a political name and then hammers home the idea that this is a problem that only they can urgently solve. And it pulls off the same trick over and over again. . . .

Read the whole thing. If you’ve been following politics for decades, you recognize this pattern. The “homelessness crisis” originated in the 1980s as a propaganda campaign by Democrats to claim that the Reagan administration was somehow responsible for a shortage of “affordable housing.” Closer examination of the evidence revealed that much of the problem (insofar as the problem actually existed) was due to the fact that the so-called “homeless” population was mentally ill, and had been “deinstitutionalized” as a result of court rulings that made it more difficult to keep psychotics locked up in lunatic asylums. Also, many states had budget problems that led them to close or reduce patient populations in state mental hospitals. Furthermore, “homelessness” seemed to be a very localized problem, specifically in Democrat-controlled cities. If this problem was Ronald Reagan’s fault, shouldn’t it be happening everywhere, and not just in New York, San Francisco, etc.?

But the activists behind the “homelessness crisis” propaganda didn’t want careful analysis of a social problem, they wanted an issue with which to attack Republicans and demand more federal welfare spending. And, as Greenfield says, this tactic has been repeated endlessly by the Left — manufacturing a “crisis” as a means of gaining political advantage — on all kinds of issues. You cannot defeat this tactic without first recognizing that it is a tactic, calling it out as such, and rejecting the “crisis” framework. This requires intelligence and courage, because stupid people will play along with the “crisis” rhetoric (not realizing they’re being misled by political propaganda) and cowardly people won’t stand up against the name-calling that is directed at, e.g, “climate deniers.”

Part of the secret of how the “crisis” tactic works is by stigmatizing skeptics: If you won’t endorse the “solution” the Left demands, then you are part of the problem. So when, for example, the Left claims that terrorism by “white supremacists” is a crisis, you will be labeled a racist — “RAAAAACIST!” — if you offer evidence that this claim is an absurd exaggeration. People don’t want to be called names, and so they won’t speak out, even if they suspect the “crisis” is fake.

Part of the problem is that most Republicans are decent, respectable, honest people who can’t conceive of the fathomless depths of cynical dishonesty that exist within the Left. We don’t want to believe people can be so craven in their lust for power that they would invent a “crisis” and make bad-faith arguments, slandering their critics, and deliberately misleading millions. Yet Democrats do this routinely, and get away with it, because Republicans so often play along.



 

Category: Democrats, Media Bias

Rule 5 Sunday: Mrs. Verlander Goes To New York

Posted on | December 12, 2022 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

One of the things that happened after the World Series was that a bunch of free agents moved to different teams, and one of them was 2022 Cy Young Winner Justin Verlander., who signed a two-year $86 million deal with the Mets. This will give his lovely wife Kate more opportunities to trash talk the Philadelphia Phillies fans, which she apparently enjoyed doing during the World Series. Here she is looking festive with a popsicle.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1925, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five War On Food Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon in a new format. 

EBL: MAGA – Trump Prosecutions?, Separated At Birth – Or Generations?, Judy Garland, From Here To Eternity, They Were Expendable, Rogue Heroes, World War II Pinups, Kirstie Alley RIP, Creepy Porn Lawyer & Democrat Darling Avenatti Gets 14 More Years In Jail, Tesla’s Electric Semi, Is Maple Syrup Appropriate For French Toast?, and The Ronettes

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: The Red Witch – Carice van Houten, Fish Pic Friday – Jessica Huffman, Tattoo Thursday, WaPoo Whines Shark Week Too White, Too “Mike”, The Wednesday Wetness, St. Marys Utility Sued over Sickening Oysters, Tuesday Tanlines, Oregon, My Oregon!, Flotsam and Jetsam: Musk Plans More, The Monday Morning Stimulus, More Random Celebrity News, Sunday Sunrise and Tests Reveal Body Armor “Skip Effect” Endangers Women

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

Florida ‘Predator’ Charged With Murder After Girl Dies From Fentanyl Overdose

Posted on | December 11, 2022 | Comments Off on Florida ‘Predator’ Charged With Murder After Girl Dies From Fentanyl Overdose

Robert Gullo, 25, had a modus operandi. Last year, he was arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior in Hernando County, Florida, after police say he had sex with an underage girl he met using the Tinder dating app. He was released on bond pending trial, and meanwhile continued doing the same thing, using the Internet to solicit minors for sex, using the offer of drugs as an incentive. In November 2021, Gullo was living in Clearwater and texting with two different girls, one 15 and another 16. On Nov. 18, 2021, Gullo sent both girls the same text message: “We should hang out tonight. Let’s do coke and get f***ed up.”

Smooth guy, eh? Real subtlety in his approach, you know?

Anyway, the 15-year-old turned down Gullo’s offer, but the 16-year-old, Meaghan Cooper, said yes. She snuck out of her house and went to Gullo’s house where, about 11:30 that night, she sent a text message to a friend: “I just did so much coke and it feels so good.”

Cooper didn’t feel good very long, however, because what she thought was cocaine was actually fentanyl. The next day, her body was found in a field near some power lines not far from Gullo’s house.

Toxicology reports showed Meaghan had four times a lethal amount of fentanyl in her system. Also, the autopsy — including DNA evidence — showed Gullo had sex with her. After an investigation that lasted more than a year, a Pinellas County grand jury last week indicted Gullo for first-degree murder and other charges. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the charges at a press conference where he called Gullo a “predator,” and the obvious question is, why was this predator on the streets after being charged in a similar (although not deadly) crime in Hernando County? What was the amount of Gullo’s bond in that case, and who bailed him out? As we all know, criminal suspects must be presumed innocent until convicted, and defendants have a constitutional right to bail that is not “excessive,” but shouldn’t public safety be weighed in the balance of justice? And, again: Who paid that bail?

Interestingly, the terms of Gullo’s pretrial release in Hernando County required him to wear a GPS ankle monitor, and the data from that device became evidence, showing that after Meaghan died from a fentanyl overdose, Gullo traveled to the spot where Meaghan’s body was dumped.

There are a lot of disturbing angles to this story. Like, how was it that a teenage girl in Hernando County was on Tinder? What kind of safeguards are there to prevent minors from accessing dating apps intended for adults? Couldn’t states impose criminal sanctions on these companies if they don’t prevent this? Don’t you think Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s Republican-controlled legislature should look into doing something to fix this dating app problem?

Perhaps most disturbing, though, is the revelation that there seem to be a lot of teenage girls who have no concept of the dangers involved with meeting strangers via the Internet. If Robert Gullo had no problem finding so many underage victims — at least three, that we know of — in this part of Florida, how many girls are there nationwide playing this dangerous game online? Thousands? Tens of thousands? More?

There is a temptation, in discussing cases like the death of Meaghan Cooper, to use the adjective “tragic,” but that isn’t the right word. The proper adjective is stupid, as in: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

My youngest daughter turned 20 last week, so now I can say that all six of my kids have survived their teenage years. That may not seem like much of an accomplishment, but judging by contemporary standards? Yeah, nominate me for Parent of the Year, every year.

And speaking from authority as Best Dad Ever, here’s some helpful advice for you kids: “Don’t be stupid. You’ll end up dead.”



 

Category: Crime, Florida

FMJRA 2.0: Mental Door

Posted on | December 11, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Mental Door

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Well, with three games each left against California & Oakland, and after dropping all five games this week (three against Boston and two against Oakland), it doesn’t look like the Senators are going to avoid 100 losses this season. Better luck in ’71, I hope.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Everybody has problems, but we have more than most teams.

Headless Woman in Hopeless City
The DaleyGator
The First Street Journal
The Pirate’s Cove
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

#TWITTERGATE: Elon Musk Exposes Twitter’s 2020 Election Interference
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

Football: Learn the Rules!
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: I Scent The Morning Air
EBL
A View From The Beach

Rule 5 Monday: HMS Foxhound/HMCS Qu’Appelle
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.05.22
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.06.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.08.22 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.08.22 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Not Since ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ Has Anyone Made a Worse Trade Than This
The DaleyGator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.09.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: FMJRA Award

The Other Podcast

Posted on | December 10, 2022 | Comments Off on The Other Podcast

Tonight on The Other Podcast, John Hoge, Dianna Deeley and myself will be talking a lot about Twitter and also there’ll be time to mention the sad fate of Rebekah Jones — guilty! guilty! guilty!



 

Category: The Other Podcast
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