The Other McCain

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

Happy Mothers Day From Charlie Sheen

Posted on | May 8, 2011 | 7 Comments

“I am teaching [my 2-year-old twin sons] words, because they’re speaking now. I’m teaching them the word ‘rehab’ so they always know where their mom is.”
— Charlie Sheen

Category: Celebrities

Large Crowd of Unattractive Women Attend ‘Slutwalk’ Parade in Boston

Posted on | May 8, 2011 | 41 Comments

“Stop the violence, stop the hate,” hundreds of ugly women chanted as they paraded down the streets holding up signs with stupid slogans:

You’ll excuse my factual description of the event, but I haven’t seen so many dogs in one place since the AKC grand championship show.

The Boston Herald reports:

It’s not every day that you see women circling Boston Common in the midafternoon wearing only micro minis and bras.
So when the “Boston Slutwalk” wound its way from Government Center to the Common yesterday, chanting, “However we dress, wherever we go, yes means yes, and no means no,” heads turned, but there weren’t many catcalls.
But then, you don’t mess with 200 “sluts” on a mission.
“Just because I want to go out and have a good time doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want with me,” said Natalie Olbrych, a 21-year-old student from Brownsville, Vt., who said she was raped in 2007 during her senior year of high school.
Yesterday’s protest was one of an international series of “Slutwalks” sparked earlier this year when a Toronto cop reportedly told a group of York University law students that the best way to avoid getting raped was to not dress like a slut.
Jaclyn Friedman, a Medford writer, performer and editor of “Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape,” called the word a “vicious weapon” designed to “keep us in line. To separate us. To make us police each other, turn on each other and turn each other in so that we can prove we’re not ‘like that.’ ”

Figuring that feminist blogs would be the best place to find the background on the “Slutwalk” movement, I went to Feministing, where I found the movement’s founders, Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis, interviewed by Lori Adelman:

Lori Adelman: What, in your opinion, is the greatest challenge facing feminism today?
Sonya Barnett: For me, it’s dealing with those that are working so hard to oppress feminism.

Which would be . . . me. Because I’m encouraging you to read that whole interview, which contains enough joke-fodder to last a lifetime, e.g.:

Lori Adelman: You’re going to a desert island, and you’re allowed to take one food, one drink and one feminist. What do you pick?
Heather Jarvis: Strawberry rhubarb pie, because I love pie even more than cupcakes. Water. And I think I would have to choose Madonna. I think she would have lots of amazing stories, and I could learn a lot from her, and she’s such a sex positive amazing badass. I would love it!

“Madonna . . . she’s such a sex positive amazing badass.” Read more

Category: Feminism, National Offend a Feminist Week

Egyptian Muslims Attack Christian Church, at Least 12 Reported Dead

Posted on | May 8, 2011 | 13 Comments

Ah, the glorious “Arab spring”!

Egypt’s prime minister called for an emergency Cabinet meeting Sunday, a day after officials reported at least 12 people were killed in sectarian clashes outside a Cairo church.
Officials said the violence began over rumors that a Christian woman who converted to Islam was being held at the church against her will. . . .
Egyptian state TV said 10 people died and 232 were wounded in the violence Saturday. At least 190 were arrested. . . .
During clashes on Saturday, witnesses said an armed group of Muslims marched on Saint Mena Coptic Orthodox Church, one of the oldest churches in Egypt.
Witnesses said Muslims and Christians exchanged gunfire, sending people running for cover.
“With my own eyes I saw three people killed and dozens injured,” said Mina Adel, a Christian resident. “There’s no security here. There’s a big problem. People attacked us, and we have to protect ourselves.”

Here’s a video report from EuroNews:

I’m curious about the repeated use of the phrase “sectarian violence.” Wouldn’t it be more accurate to call this “Islamic terrorism”? Because that’s what it looks like to me.

UPDATE: Linked by the Rio Norte Line — thanks! — and now a Memeorandum thread. More commentary by Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, Fire Andrea Mitchell, Israel Matzav and Gateway Pundit.

Category: Egypt, Islam, Terrorism

Sex + Coffee = DEATH?

Posted on | May 8, 2011 | 16 Comments

We are so doomed:

If you have a brain aneurysm, drinking coffee, having sex or even getting angry may boost the risk of it rupturing, a new study suggests.

One day, you’ll be having a nice cup of coffee, relaxing after sex, and your brain will just explode all over the place, like in Scanners or something. Science is taking all the fun out of life.

Category: Science

It’s OK To Relax About Osama

Posted on | May 8, 2011 | 28 Comments

by Smitty

Pamela, I respect you endlessly, but I’m curious: where is the line on too much? Osama was given the proper, standard treatment for the deceased. Chaplains (I presume) did their job.

Many of us, myself in particular, were repulsed and outraged by the revelation that the US military was forced to bury Osma bin Laden according to Islamic precepts, and that it was the priority of the Obama administration that it be done right — much preparation was made prior to the kill. They couldn’t decide on releasing the pictures prior to the kill, but studying Islamic texts and preparing for an Islamic burial, that was what the Obama administration deemed important.

Past the emotion, though: what else were they to do?
I’m no New Yorker (though I did lose a friend in the Pentagon on 9/11) but I’m not tracking where the outpouring of stong emotions is going. Osama was killed, and handled in a common, businesslike manner. In terms of de-escalating the situation, this seems the minimal approach. I’ve heard people say they should have dropped a bunch of ordnance on the compound after departing. Look, the location will be turned into a shrine, in any case, by those obsessessing over the guy.
My argument is that the dispassionate approach is more economical. In response to a commenter, I’m not ‘spitting on the audience’. This is not a ‘concern troll’. This is a call to step back and think a minute.

Category: Atlas Shrugs

Ruh-Roh, Rod: Dreher’s Pseudonymous Postings Could Cause Him Big Trouble

Posted on | May 8, 2011 | 24 Comments

Using an online pseudonym is always a dangerous game, and now it is being alleged that former National Review/Dallas Morning Journal writer Rod Dreher has jeopardized his career with pseudonymous posts at a religious blog.

A round-up of the story at Est Quod Est blog may leave some readers confused, but it identifies Dreher as “Muzshik” (Russian for “peasant”) on the Orthodox Christian blog OCATruth.com. (OCA = Orthodox Church in America.) The blog launched on March 3 in defense of OCA primate, Metropolitan Jonah Paffhausen, who is opposed by some Orthodox clergy and laity, including Mark Stokoe, who blogs at OCANews.org.

On April 30, Stokoe published a series of e-mails purporting to show that Dreher had been instrumental in establishing OCATruth.com, which included this message attributed to Dreher:

“Please, please, please don’t tell ANYBODY that I have anything to do with this site. . . . But really, I am taking a big risk here.”

To say the least! Dreher is publications director for the John Templeton Foundation. He left the Dallas Morning News in January 2010 to take that job, and the kind of pseudonymous activity at OCATruth.com is definitely not within Dreher’s job description. He hasn’t blogged at BeliefNet since July 2010, and the blogger at Est Quod Est suggests Dreher’s bosses at Templeton may have forbidden him from further outside blogging.

As soon as OCANews.org published the e-mails, “Muzhik” stopped blogging at OCATruth.com. (His last post on April 30 was about a synod of Orthodox bishops in Chicago shunning Paffhausen.) So it at least appears that Dreher may have some ‘splainin’ to do.

In case you don’t remember who Rod Dreher is, he made a big splash in March 2009 by bashing Rush Limbaugh’s CPAC speech. In May 2009, Mark Levin took on Dreher in a guest-post at Riehl World View.

UPDATE: Linked at Riehl World View — thanks!

UPDATE II: A reader helpfully points out that Dreher’s BeliefNet attack on Limbaugh’s CPAC speech has been taken off-line, but was substantially quoted in Tim Graham’s rebuttal at NewsBusters.

UPDATE III: Thanks to another reader for pointing out where Dreher distilled his anti-Limbaugh sentiments into a newspaper column:

[T]he GOP and the conservative movement are stuck on stupid. . . . [I]f Limbaugh’s vision represents the future of American conservatism, count this conservative out.

OK, Rod: You’re out. And no one in the conservative movement will defend you in your present predicament, nor lift a finger to help you if you get fired by Templeton, because you are so damned important — and so much smarter than the rest of us — that you clearly have no need of anyone’s help.

You are an autonomous Movement of One. And good luck with that.

Category: Blogging, Religion

Herman Cain: Viva Las Vegas!

Posted on | May 7, 2011 | 12 Comments

Mike Chamberlain at Cranky Hermit has a report of Herman Cain’s appearance at Chuck Muth’s “First Friday” event in Vegas:

The day after an impressive performance in a Republican Presidential debate, Herman Cain left little doubt about his future intentions. He told the assembled local bloggers and print journalists at a briefing in Las Vegas, “Hold the date of May 21st . . . in Atlanta, Atlanta’s Centennial Park. Hold the date. Now do you think I’m going to be holding the date and having a rally at Centennial Park on May 21st to tell you that I am not running? You make the call. Last night exceeded our expectations.” . . .
Cain, who described himself as “proud to be an American, black conservative,” dismissed race as an issue. “Color is off the table whether I run or not,” he said, adding, “Did Barack Obama open the door for me because I’m black? No. The door was already open. He just happened to get through it first.” . . .
Later that evening one of the largest crowds ever attended the First Friday event, primarily to see featured speaker Cain. Many came to see him despite not knowing who he was a mere 24 hours earlier. After delivering his speech he was deluged with requests for photographs and autographs by an adoring crowd.

Read the whole thing. Among other things, Cain pointed out that Nevada is the first western state to hold a 2012 primary — and he loves Las Vegas.

Isn’t it time you joined the online grassroots army at Citizens for Cain?

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Nevada

Your Irregular Rick Moran Update

Posted on | May 7, 2011 | 4 Comments

You may have asked yourself, “What’s Rick Moran been up to lately?”

Or perhaps you’re now asking yourself, “Who the heck is Rick Moran?”

Circa 2009, Smitty would occasionally kick Rick around a bit just for fun, but that was then and this is now, and Smitty’s found more lively amusement in Afghanistan lately. So in case you’re a longtime readers with a long memory who pines for the old days of Moran-bashing, here’s an update:

Thursday, when Obama visited Ground Zero, Jake Tapper of ABC News sent out this Tweet:

One minute to air and they decided to take the flag down from the live shot! http://twitpic.com/4tv4br

This created instant outrage among conservative bloggers, who interpreted Tapper’s message as saying that someone — the stage managers for Team Obama, perhaps with politically correct motives? — had decided to remove the U.S. flag from the background of the president’s appearance.

Au contraire, as it turns out that Tapper sent that message after the president had already come and gone from the Ground Zero site. What Tapper was complaining about was that workers cleaning up the site after Obama’s appearance had removed the flag right before the post-event “live shot” in which Tapper would be interviewed on-camera to give his report of the event.

In other words, the workers had deprived Tapper of the camera-friendly background he had hoped for — but this took place after the presidential event. The flag had been present throughout Obama’s Ground Zero appearance.

Meanwhile, however, the misunderstood Tweet caused a huge blow-up on the blogosphere, regrettably handing Oliver Willis of Media Matters a “nyah nyah” moment.

So where does Rick Moran fit into this narrative? During the flag brouhaha, Doug Ross had used the phrase “Marxist left” to describe Obama’s supporters. This led to a stern lecture by Moran, which Doug Ross describes for your edification.

Me? I had nothing to do with any of that.

My coverage of Obama’s appearance at Ground Zero was pre-empted by a much-needed nap. I get in less trouble that way.

You should hit my tip jar.

Category: Barack Obama, Doug Ross, Rick Moran
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