The Other McCain

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

Propaganda, ‘Misinformation’ and Other Lessons From Communist History

Posted on | December 17, 2022 | 3 Comments

“Marxism criticizes the achievements of all those who think otherwise by representing them as the venal servants of the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person.”
— Ludwig von Mises, 1922

Everything you need to know about the motives and methods of the 21st-century Left can be learned from studying 20th-century Communism. What Mises said about Marx and Engels, and the ad hominem quality of their rhetoric — slander and insults, rather than actual arguments — was even more true of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, et al. Having once seized power, the Bolsheviks immediately proceeded to suppress all potential rivals. Within a month, they established the Cheka (predecessor of the NKVD and, later, the KGB) and appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky as its leader. Eight months later, the Red Terror began in earnest, and within a matter of weeks, the Bolsheviks had summarily executed more victims than were sentenced to death in the entire preceding century by the Tzarist regime.

Lenin had a habit of sending telegrams urging more executions — round up 100 kulaks and hang them in public, to “make an example of these people” — and such state-sponsored mass murder was committed without any semblance of justice. No trials, no evidence, no witnesses, no testimony — just round up some “class enemies” and kill them, for the sake of intimidating the survivors. The Bolshevik regime was baptized in the blood of innocents, with the executions averaging 500 a week for four years, from 1918 to 1922. After the German socialist Karl Kautsky published a pamphlet criticizing the unprecedented and systematic brutality of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky replied with a polemic, Communism and Terrorism (Anti-Kautsky), justifying the Red Terror as a necessity:

Intimidation is a powerful weapon of policy, both internationally and internally. War, like revolution, is founded upon intimidation. A victorious war, generally speaking, destroys only an insignificant part of the conquered army, intimidating the remainder and breaking their will. The revolution works in the same way: it kills individuals, and intimidates thousands.

This was published in 1920, about midway through the Red Terror, and certainly Trotsky at that time could not have believed that the deadly instruments of revolutionary terrorism would one day be turned against him, as he was finally murdered by one of Stalin’s agents. But such is the logic of radicalism which, unable to refute its critics, instead resorts to slander and which ultimately must resort to mass murder as “a powerful weapon of policy.” And nothing has really changed in the Left’s methods, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union. American Democrats now support the arrest and incarceration of their enemies for daring to protest an election that the protesters believed to have been stolen and, in a remarkable feat of rhetorical jiu-jitsu, it is the protesters who are accused of being enemies of Our Democracy, rather than the officials who demand such prosecutions (and who advocate censorship of any criticism). We have not yet reached the point of telegrams to the secret police demanding public hangings of kulaks, but be patient.

All of that is preamble to David Strom’s take on “prebunking”:

The other day I wrote a piece about how the Left can’t argue anymore. My thesis was pretty simple: because they have owned the cultural means of production so long they have lost the need for or ability to argue things logically.
I still believe that. Having rarely been exposed to a conservative argument that [they] haven’t been able to dismiss merely through repeated ridicule the Left pretty much only engages in ad hominem attacks. Even very smart prominent Lefties . . . seem incapable of doing much more than insulting their opponents any more. It all boils down to Bad Orange Man or MAGA simps. . . .
But I ran into a slightly different perspective on the matter while cruising Twitter, and I think it deserves consideration: sometimes, at least, the person throwing out an absurd take isn’t actually hoping to convince you of anything. They are, rather, trying to discredit the source and do nothing more. The ad hominem attack is the only point — to destroy the credibility of their opponent, without actually convincing you of any particular argument.

Sic semper hoc — nothing has changed in the century since Mises succinctly described the rhetorical methods of Marx and Engels. You can study the history of “McCarthyism” (where the most prominent public enemy of Communism was defamed and destroyed, in order to prevent further exposure of Communist infiltration) and see where these methods have been practiced in the past. The example chosen by Strom, in which Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D., falsely accuses Elon Musk of promoting “QAnon” conspiracy theories, is typical of such methods. Because Musk has ended the Left’s control of Twitter (thus threatening their power to suppress opposition), he is an enemy who must be destroyed, and any slander will do, no matter how implausible it may be.

The claim by the Left that their opponents traffic in “misinformation” and conspiracy theories is, as Strom says, part of their effort “to destroy the credibility of their opponents,” no different than Trotsky’s attack on the socialist Karl Kautsky who, because he criticized the Red Terror, was denounced as an “enemy of the proletariat.” Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, and is anyone really surprised that our education system — controlled by Democrats — doesn’t teach anything useful about the bloody history of Communism?

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)



 

Category: History

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 12.16.22

Posted on | December 17, 2022 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts, also, maybe, a book post.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

…and now, a little chillwave.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Ronna McDaniels Squandering Money at the RNC, Giant Berlin Aquarium Bursts, and Don’t Cry For Me John Boehner
Twitchy: Elon Musk Trolls The Press On Freedom Of Speech, Tucker Carlson Roasts Adam Kinzinger For Fury Over Catturd Meme, and Super “Patriot” Ex-LTC Vindman DEMANDS Elon Musk Explain Himself
Louder With Crowder:  Elon Musk hops on Spaces, informs whiny woke journalists they aren’t special and the rules apply to them too, also, Elon Musk lays out his reasons for suspending alleged ‘journalists’ from Twitter
Vox Popoli:  Free Speech Was Always Fake, also, We Don’t KNOW It Was the Vaxx
According To Hoyt: A Forgotten Sale And An HR Complaint, Comfort and Safety, and Hurty Speech
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S3 E22: Titles (& Why We Suck At Them)
Stoic Observations: The Subway Bike Story
Gab News: Musk Is In Over His Head

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Cathedral Turns Torquemada On Elon Musk, also, Congress Wages Total War on America’s Interests
American Greatness: First-Ever Emmy Awards for Children Heavily Pushes LGBT Content, also, Senate Votes Against Measure to Reinstate Troops Kicked Out over COVID Vaccines
American Thinker: Creative Historical Interpretations Are Not History, also, What the ‘Respect for Marriage Act’ Really Respects
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Climate Cult Friday
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship thanks the U.S. for $2 million in aid with no strings attached, Cuban priest speaks out, condemns the lack of religious freedom in Cuba, New study claims small number of Cuban natives survived Spain’s genocidal massacres, and Surprise! Havana Cuba wins major prize: ‘Slowest Internet on Planet Earth’
Baldilocks: Why Firefly Got Shot Down
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For December 16, 2022
Behind The Black: SpaceX launches oceanography satellite, Ingenuity completes 36th flight; preps for its 37th, Astronomers determine that two super-Earths are not as rocky as previously believed, and The edge of the Martian south pole ice cap
Cafe Hayek: How ‘Nature’ Has Fallen, also, Daniele Struppa on the ‘Degrowth’ Paper
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: If It Wasn’t For Double Standards
Don Surber: “You’re not special because you’re a journalist.”, also, 249 years ago, the Boston Tea Party begat a revolution
First Street Journal: Killadelphia, also, I take no joy in seeing Washington Post employees getting laid off
Gates Of Vienna: Solipsism in the 21st Century, Get Vaxed or Get Brain Damage!, and And Unto Us a Vax is Given
The Geller Report: Twitter Suspends Reporters from CNN, NYT, WaPo for ‘Doxxing’ Musk’s Family, also, Hear Freedom Ring! Pamela Geller is Back on Twitter
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, The Wheel of Karma, Yelling, “Theatre!” at a Crowded Fire, and I’m Not Making This Up, You Know
Hollywood In Toto: Dozed and Confused Shares Laughs, Hope and a Classic Roger Ebert Story, Right-leaning Private American gets canceled by Kickstarter, Daily Kos, and Kirk Cameron Mulls Lawsuits Against Drag Queen-Friendly Libraries
The Lid: Happy Birthday Bill of Rights, also, Majority of Democrats Are Saying ‘No’ to Biden 2024
Legal Insurrection: STEM Is DEI-ing, How to Fight Critical Race Theory Legally and Successfully, Five Left-Wing Activists Arrested for Domestic Terrorism in Georgia, #TwitterFiles Part Six: “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary”, and Yeshiva University Must Recognize LGBTQ Club, Appeals Court Rules
Nebraska Energy Observer: Twitter, Free Speech, and the Wonder of the Internet
Outkick: Fan Denies Threatening Draymond Green, Says Police Back Him Up, Miami Redhawks Honor Mike Leach With Pirate-Inspired Decal During Bahamas Bowl, SMU Surprised To See All The Wives Of BYU Players At Bowl Game: ‘That’s Different’, Trent Dilfer Spends Day 1 On Job Showing UAB Cheerleader His Super Bowl Ring At Bahamas Bowl, and Aaron Rodgers’ Alleged Girlfriend, Blu of Earth, Is Stuck In Peru & It Might Be Over Between These Two
Power Line: A Twitter Files footnote, An Updated Lexicon, and Elon Agonistes [Updated]
Shark Tank: Rep. Byron Donalds Calls Out Murder Turtle For Omnibus Spending Compromise
Shot In The Dark: It Seems Appropriate, also, The Real Authoritarians Debate Part I – Defining The Terms
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 4)
This Ain’t Hell: U.S. Army to train 500 Ukrainian troops a month in Germany starting in January 2023, CDC removes pro-gun findings under pressure from Gun Control groups, ‘Survivor’ Winner’s Class Act, Russian troll strikes Valor Guardians!, and Valor Friday
Transterrestrial Musings: California’s “Assault Weapons” Ban, Try, Try Again, Silicon-Valley Fraudsters, Ron DeSantis, and Brian Binnie
Victory Girls: Twitter Is Just The Tip Of The Big Tech Leviathan
Volokh Conspiracy: An Assessment of the Oral Argument in 303 Creative
Watts Up With That: Elevated Living Standards Contradict Climate Doomsayers, also, Claim: Computer Models Predict a Third of Vertebrates will Die by 2100
Weasel Zippers: Biden: U.S. Taxpayers To Pay South Africa $8 Billion To Shut Down Their Coal Power Plants, Providence To Fix Racism With $10 Million Payout For Slavery Reparations, Special K Claims The Trump Administration “Completely Gutted” The Immigration System, and Iran Halts Funding For Palestinian Terror Groups… Joe Biden, Not So Much
The Federalist: No, It’s Not ‘Fair-Minded’ To Defend ‘Journalists’ Who Use Twitter To Dox Their Political Enemies, Fight ‘Zuckbucks’ With Laws, Not Lawsuits, Is HBO’s White Lotus A Reactionary Masterpiece?, EXCLUSIVE: West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore Joins Calls For BlackRock CEO Larry Fink To Resign, and Leftists Call Free Speech ‘Violence’ To Mute Critics Of Barbaric Transgender Surgeries For Kids
Mark Steyn: You Gotta Have Heart!

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Category: Linkagery

Wheel in the Sky Keeps on Turning

Posted on | December 16, 2022 | Comments Off on Wheel in the Sky Keeps on Turning

Aaron Rupar was among several left-wing journalists whose Twitter accounts got suspended Thursday for promoting the “doxxing” of Elon Musk’s private jet. Having been permanently suspended myself — for nothing — all I can say is, “Gosh, it’s terrible what’s happening to you.”

When I say I was suspended “for nothing,” what I mean is that the reason given — “participating in targeted abuse” — provided no explanation specific enough that it could be challenged, and this rule had been concocted just a few months prior to my February 2016 suspension. It seems that the “targeted abuse” rule was intended to shield various SJWs who, by their obnoxious behavior, had attracted swarms of Twitter critics (e.g., “A Tattoo-Covered, Mentally Ill Ex-Stripper Whose Real Name Is Chelsea Van Valkenburg”). Certainly some of these people suffered what could fairly be called “abuse,” but the accusation of “participating” in such abuse is broad enough to implicate lots of people through guilt-by-association. So if someone with tens of thousands of followers (as I had on my @rsmccain account) happens to RT something about such a target, he can be accused of “participating,” even if (a) the message he retweeted wasn’t abusive and (b) he himself had otherwise scarcely paid any attention to the person claiming to be a victim of abuse.

Because the “Trust & Safety” crew at Twitter was apparently 100% left-wing, it was always conservatives who had to fear banishment for Thought Crimes, and now that Elon Musk has started cleaning house, the Left is claiming victimhood because not only have they lost the power to silence their enemies, they themselves are now at risk of being silenced for engaging in abusive behavior that they’ve become accustomed to dishing out, but never taking. Aaron Rupar was among those leftists who celebrated the banning of their opponents, and it is thus impossible for me to stop gloating that the shoe is now on the other foot.

Many others share my sentiments, obviously.



 

Category: Liberals, Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 12.15.22 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | December 16, 2022 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.
OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Binance – Prosecuting Us Would Be Bad For Business
EBL: It is a good thing that Thom Tillis is a failure, also, Trump Thursday Trading Tank
Twitchy: Cue Lefty Meltdown While People Guess Why Aaron Rupar Got B&, also, Insane Has-Been Sports Guy, Other Leftists Also Get The Boot From Twitter
Louder With Crowder: I am leaving The Blaze (Mug Club Forever)
Vox Popoli: When Jordan Took the Ticket, Creepy Creeps Creeping Creepily, and Bad News, Equalitarians
Gab News: Welcome To The New Rome

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Air Raids On and Off the Field, also, Trump Emigrates To Clown World
American Greatness: Two Antithetical Billionaires, DeSantis Launches Full-Throttle Accountability Investigations into COVID Vaccines, and Exclusive: GOP-Controlled House Judiciary Committee Plans to Hold Numerous Hearings Examining FBI Whistleblower Disclosures
American Thinker: Arizona 2022 Midterm Elections and Election Fraud – Ballot Harvesting, also, Biden’s New Authoritarians Prioritize Gender Transition over Religious Liberty
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Elder Abuse News
Babalu Blog: RSF 2022 press freedoms report lists Cuba dead last in Latin America, Sen. Marco Rubio calls on FCC to deny Cuba an undersea internet cable connection to the U.S., and Cuba Thaw 2.0: Biden admin making ‘discrete progress’ in talks with Cuba’s dictatorship
BattleSwarm: Texas Nurse Practitioner Sues VA Over Being Forced To Support Abortions
Behind The Black: Soyuz manned capsule docked to ISS is apparently leaking something, Red China launches classified remote sensing satellite, France orders Eutelsat to stop broadcasting Russian channels, and Today’s blacklisted American: Conservative students and pro-speech law firm slandered and threatened at University of Kansas
Cafe Hayek: Communicating Economics, also, A Sure Cure for “Eco-Anxiety”
CDR Salamander: Meeting the Demand Signal
Da Tech Guy: Five Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora, also, Four fundamental constitutional truths most Americans are no longer aware of
Don Surber:  Facing layoffs, WaPo staffers go nuts, also, Trump was right about TikTok
First Street Journal: #Climapocracy! Pete Buttigieg wants us all to reduce our carbon emissions, but he takes a jet every 3½ days, also, More public school failure in Kentucky
Gates Of Vienna: Our Transhuman Future, Culture-Enriching World Cup Riots in the Netherlands (And France), and The Windmills of my Mind
The Geller Report: Zelenskyy’s Wife Drops $40,000 in Christmas Shopping Spree in Paris
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Io in IR, and “On Track,” But Where To?
Hollywood In Toto: Oz Spinoff Gale Speaks Directly to Horror Fans, also, Chelsea Handler Denies Cancel Culture Exists. Tell it to Tom Papa
The Lid: Rampant Retail Theft In Big Box Stores Forcing Raised Prices And Closing Locations
Legal Insurrection: Red China Quickly Accelerates from ‘Zero Covid’ to Having Numerous COVID Cases, Special K Blames Trump for Border Crisis, Claims Biden is Securing the Border, Energy Dept. has Given Over $10 Million to Green Energy Company Connected to Red Chinese ‘State-Owned Entity’, and Ben & Jerry’s Ends Its Dispute With Unilever Over Ice Cream Brand Sales In Israel
Nebraska Energy Observer: Luke 12:2 – 3
Outkick: Richard Sherman Tries To Kick Seattle Radio Host Off His Own Show, Refuses To Answer Question, Frustration And Jealousy Boils Amongst Top College Basketball Programs As Late NIL Payments, Unkept Promises Stack Up, Lawsuit Names Aqib Talib Concerning Murder Of Youth Football Coach, Claims Ex-NFL Player Started Fight That Led To Death, Brock Purdy Proves Nick Saban Wrong After Calling Out Alabama Coach For Not Knowing Who He Was During Recruiting Visit, Tampa Bay Rays Acquire Minor League Pitcher Who Is Legally Blind At 20/300 Vision, and Ohio State Reportedly Getting Outbid For Recruits By A Huge Margin
Power Line: The Daily Chart: Charge Ahead?, Anatomy of a Fraud, and Notes on the Twitter Files, cont’d
Shark Tank: Mills Seeks To Criminalize Inappropriate Education Material
Shot In The Dark: Evolution, also, Circling The Drain
STUMP: Mortality with Meep: Ranking the States by COVID age-adjusted death rates
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 3)
This Ain’t Hell: Man Convicted in Shooting Death of Navy Midshipman’s Mother, Ukraine secures release of US military veteran in prisoner swap with Russia, Still looking for a last minute XMas gift? We have you covered!, and Police officers repeatedly punch a U.S. Army veteran during traffic stop
Transterrestrial Musings: Eugene Volokh, The Orbital Debris Problem, Two Antithetical Billionaires, and The Fifth Estate
Victory Girls: Does Trump Really Want The Presidency Again?
Volokh Conspiracy: Today in Supreme Court History: December 15, 1791
Watts Up With That: Holy C^%@, Authoritarian Evil of ESG Emerges at Texas Hearing, also, Green Germany Haemorrhaging €1.5 Billion per DAY to Keep the Lights On
Weasel Zippers: Biden Offers Africa $55 Billion For America’s “Original Sin”, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) Says He’s “Hopeful” Biden Will Run In 2024 As 70% Of Americans Say He Shouldn’t, Detroit Beclowns Itself, and COVID Origins Tied To China’s Bioweapons Program
The Federalist: Why The Redefinition Of The Word ‘Woman’ Matters, 7 Easy Things You Can Do To Keep Christ At The Center Of Your Christmas, Social Media Is Making You A Worse Person, and U.S. Intelligence Agencies Are Keeping Key Information About Covid Origins From Congress
Mark Steyn: Exporting Knowledge, Nursing Diversity, and Live Around the Planet: Friday December 16th

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 12.15.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | December 15, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.15.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1931
357 Magnum: Math Is Hard, But It Is NOT This Hard
EBL: Poser Pete’s Public Paid For Plane, Mike Leach, RIP, and Has FTX’s Caroline Ellison flipped on Democrat Megadonor Sam Bankman Fried?
Twitchy: Taylor Lorenz Tries Denying Her Very Very Privileged Background, Gets Rekt By Own Tweets
Louder With Crowder: Elon Musk confirms “prosecute Fauci” was a preview of new information he’ll be releasing
Vox Popoli: Subversion and Perversion, Why Russia Will Defeat Clown World, Amazon Doubles Down, and Of All The Words
Stoic Observations: The Senegalese Suicide

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Latest Australian False Flag
American Conservative: You’ll Own Nothing, and Hate It, also, You Were Right About Twitter
American Greatness: The Wasteland of Leftist Compassion, also, Sam Brinton Released on $15,000 Bond After Judge Warns Him to ‘Stay Out of Trouble’
American Thinker: Election-Fraud Corruption Is Deeper than Anyone Can Imagine
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: How to defend yourself from the Cubans: Alvarez Guedes on the strength of Coño
BattleSwarm: Tilt-Rotor, Take Two
Behind The Black: Rwanda and Nigeria to sign Artemis Accords, The first launch of Red China’s Zhuque-2 rocket ends in failure, Space Force and ROK set up joint office to monitor Norks, and Today’s blacklisted American: Book touting Judeo-Christian values blacklisted from libraries
Da Tech Guy: The Kindest Word I Can Use is “Coward”, also, The Great Christian Paradox
Don Surber: Is Occasional Cortex headed for an Oscar?, also, Groomer is the word of the year
First Street Journal: Killadelphia, also, Bidenflation
The Geller Report: Execrable Republican Mitch McConnell Blames Trump For His Own Failures and Treachery, also, Judge Orders Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs to Appear at Emergency Court Hearing Over Election Lawsuit
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Zooming in on the Galactic Center, and WaPo Announces Layoffs Are Coming
Hollywood In Toto: Avatar: The Way of Water Offers Subversive Defense of Nuclear Family
The Lid: Gov. Ron DeSantis Asks Grand Jury to Probe Wrongdoing Over COVID Vax, also, Russia Now Executing Its Own Soldiers For…
Legal Insurrection: Ex-DOE Pervo Sam Brinton Appears in Las Vegas Court, The Battle for RNC Chair is Getting Tricky for Ronna McDaniel, Kansas Universities Might Scrap College Algebra Requirement Since 1 Out of 3 Students Fail It the First Time, Florida Cop Overdosed on Fentanyl After Exposure During Traffic Stop, and GOP Rep. Nancy Mace Confronts Trans Activist With Her Own Dangerous Rhetoric
Nebraska Energy Observer: Snow in the Smoke
Outkick: Tom Brady Being Sued By Patriots Fan Who Poured Life Savings Into FTX, Tennessee WR Jalin Hyatt Opts Out Of Orange Bowl After Signing NIL Deal With Hyatt Hotels To Help With Team’s Travel Expenses, Top Transfer QB Snubs Louisville For Return To G5 Level After Signing New NIL Deal, Exemplifies Modern Era Of College Football, Mississippi State Drops Emotional Mike Leach Tribute Video, and ‘Conspiracy’: Charles Barkley Torches The Lakers
Power Line: The Daily Chart: The Health Care Admin Blob, Not liking it, and Will Anyone Pay a Price for Suppressing Freedom of Speech?
Shark Tank: Florida Citrus Grower Takes $23 Million hit From Hurricane Ian
Shot In The Dark: Waiting On “Wilson Derangement”, Body Count, and Inevitable
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2022 (Day 2)
This Ain’t Hell: Hump Day Shorts – Brinton, Doggy Mask, Relieved commanders, Fallujah, Indictment unsealed on Marine veteran accused of training Chinese military pilots, and Americans Charged in Russia Arms Ring
Transterrestrial Musings: Biden’s Return To Normalcy, Medieval Feudalism, and Avatar, The Way Of Water
Victory Girls: Media Now Begging Biden To Not Die On Them
Volokh Conspiracy: Did the Fourteenth Amendment Alter the Meaning of the Second Amendment?
Watts Up With That: Virginia Agrees to Compensate Fishing Industry for Damage from Offshore Wind, also, More Climate Misinformation and Factual Errors in the Seattle Times. Should You Care?
Weasel Zippers: Norwegian Lesbian Artist Faces Criminal Charges For Saying Men Cannot Be Lesbians, Hollywood Lib: Biden “Most Successful” President In Last 60 Years, Not A Parody: Study Links Skipping The Covid Vaccine To Traffic Accidents, and Biden Delivers Gibberish Even As He Reads From A Giant Teleprompter
The Federalist: Democrats Court Their Newest Voting Bloc: High Schoolers, South Dakota State University Hosted A ‘Kid-Friendly’ Drag Show And Gov. Kristi Noem Is Doing Nothing About It, Ruth Marcus Is The Reason Brett Kavanaugh Would Probably Rather Not Mingle Outside ‘Friendly’ Circles, and Did Ohio Just Elect The Next Ilhan Omar?
Mark Steyn: Changing the Channel, also, A Mock Turtle on the Stuart River

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Category: Linkagery

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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