The Other McCain

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

Teacher Convicted of Sex With Teen Asks Judge for Castration Instead of Prison

Posted on | December 6, 2010 | 2 Comments

Weird story from Connecticut:

A teacher convicted of sexually assaulting one of his students had an odd request for the judge at his sentencing Thursday.
Adam Friedman, 46, offered to be castrated in an effort to avoid prison time.
Friedman was an instructor at the Arts at the Capitol Theater magnet school in Willimantic when he was arrested in December 2008.
Prosecutors say Friedman had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl between July and November 2008. . . .
Thursday at his formal sentencing . . . Friedman asked Judge Elliot Solomon to allow him to be castrated instead of going to prison.
Solomon didn’t take the offer, sentencing Friedman to 13 years.

Beyond the weird factor, did you notice that this took place at a “magnet school”? In other words, getting to attend this school was like a real special honor or something. Maybe they need to take that concept back to the drawing board.

Category: Connecticut, Crime

Ruh-Roh: Bernanke Says Unemployment Won’t Be Back to ‘Normal’ for Five Years

Posted on | December 6, 2010 | 2 Comments

On “60 Minutes” last night:

The nation’s unemployment rate, which has been over 9 percent for a record 19 months, is not likely to return to “a more normal unemployment rate” of about 5 percent or 6 percent for four or five years, the Federal Reserve chairman said in an interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes” broadcast on Sunday night. . . .
Bernanke said: “Between the peak and the end of last year, we lost eight and a half million jobs. We’ve only gotten about a million of them back so far. And that doesn’t even account the new people coming into the labor force. At the rate we’re going, it could be four, five years before we are back to a more normal unemployment rate. Somewhere in the vicinity of say 5 or 6 percent.”

You know what the weird thing is? You can expect the stock market to go up because of this bad-news remark by Bernanke. Why? Because if Bernanke believes the economy’s in the toilet, it probably means the Fed will keep pumping currency, which means low interest rates for financial institutions, etc.

“They’re trying to re-inflate the bubble,” as an economist buddy remarked to me in May 2009. But it’s not working and at some point, they’re going to have to admit that it’s not working. And he’s your kick-in-the-head economic news of the day:

Gold imports into China have soared this year, turning the country, already the largest bullion miner, into a major overseas buyer for the first time in recent memory.
The surge . . . comes as Chinese investors look for insurance against rising inflation and currency appreciation . . .

Guess they’ve been listening to Glenn Beck.

Category: Economics

LIVE AT FIVE – 12.06.10

Posted on | December 6, 2010 | 1 Comment

TOP NEWS

Wikileaks Founder Threatens To Taunt U.S. A Second Time

Does not actually know how to use the word "thermonuclear" in a sentence

Claims to have 1.3 GB of unredacted files ready to be released

Tax Deal Could Have Something For Everyone
Reduced tax rates for all taxpayers likely to be extended in return for more unemployment funding

Prop 8 Goes Back To Court Today
Ninth Circuit panel to hear arguments for, against gay marriage initiative

Sailor Remembers Attack On Pearl Harbor 69 Years Ago
U.S.S. California survivor recalls Japanese sneak attack

POLITICS

Schumer Wants Making TSA Scan Recording, Publication Even More Illegal, Or Something

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) discovers the privacy issue

TSA: “Problem? What problem?”

Christie To New York: “Stop Screwing With Us”

Gingrich: “I’m More Inclined To Run In 2012”

Being Publicly Censured Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry

State Judge To Determine If Texas’ Death Penalty Is Constitutional


THE ECONOMY, STUPID

Citing Fatigue, Pfizer CEO Quits

Bernanke: More Fed Bond Buys “Certainly Possible”

Level 3 Claims Comcast Jacking Up Internet Fees To Guard TV Business

Galaxy Tab Sales Hit One Million

SPORTS

It’s Ducks & Tigers For the BCS

Puddles is ready to dine in Glendale!

Horned Frogs & Badgers in the Rose Bowl

Manning Throws Four Interceptions In OT Loss To Cowboys

Werth Agrees To Seven-Year Deal With Nationals

Red Sox, Padres Complete Deal For Gonzalez

McDowell’s Birdie Putts Foil Tiger


FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS

Brooke Mueller Checks Into Sober Living Facility

Charlie Sheen's soon-to-be-ex, Brooke Mueller

Mom: “Brooke is really trying to get her life back.”

Bristol Palin: “Really, Margaret? Really?

Suge Knight Arrested On Traffic Warrant, Released

Mel Gibson In Weird, Wacky “Beaver” Trailer (Video)

Asked & Answered: Nicki Minaj

Is Taylor Momsen The New Christina Aguilera?

Robert Downey Jr. Signed For Movie Musical



Third Injury Strikes Troubled “Spiderman” Broadway Play


FOREIGNERS

Iran Claims Self-Sufficiency In Uranium Production

UK Had Its Own Anna Chapman – Or Rather, A String Of Them

Hundreds Missing In Medellin Landslide

Israel, Turkey To Meet In Geneva, Seeking To Repair Ties



BLOGS & STUFF

Weasel Zippers: Bolton – Obama A Bigger Danger Than Wikileaks

Dan Drezner: So How’s The Global Jihad Going?

Classical Values: Is That A Cucumber In Your Underwear…

Jammie Wearing Fool: We Were Punished For Saving The Economy Or Something

Power Line: “Everyone” Knows The Solution…


— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

VIDEO: ‘Merry Christmas, Everybody!’

Posted on | December 6, 2010 | 14 Comments

From our family to yours:

That sweet little girl? Her name is Reagan and as of today — Monday, Dec. 6 — she is 8 years old.

Yeah, it’s her birthday.

If that doesn’t inspire you to hit the tip jar, I don’t know what ever will. Perhaps the threat of a lawsuit?

Category: Christmas, Family, Video

Smell the Glove, America!

Posted on | December 5, 2010 | 3 Comments

Professor Glenn Reynolds nails it:

Nigel Tufnel, many will remember, was the fictitious heavy metal guitarist in the fictional “rockumentary” “This Is Spinal Tap.” In a classic scene, he displays his guitar collection and his special amplifier that — unlike all other amplifiers in existence — has knobs that go all the way up to 11, instead of just 10.
And that’s what Obama has done: In his first two years as president, he’s taken us to 11 in so many ways. . . .

Read the whole thing. There’s a Memeorandum thread, with further blog commentary by Don Surber, Classical Values, Riehl World View and — amazingly enough — Instapundit.

Category: Barack Obama, Instapundit

FMJRA 2.0: Wobbling Down The Road

Posted on | December 5, 2010 | 1 Comment

Okay…got a little fancy this week and did a crude sort by post popularity. Maybe next week I can actually subdue the cold/flu/plague/whatever and get this done on Saturday. Meanwhile, enjoy.

She’s Certainly Making the Right Enemies

  • DaTechguy
  • Republican Redefined
  • Hillbuzz
  • Adelie Manchot
  • The Sundries Shack
  • TrogloPundit


    • Memo for Meghan McCain

  • Outside the Beltway
  • Fausta’s Blog
  • Cassy Fiano
  • Obi`s Sister
  • Ruby Slippers Blog


    • Muslim Columnist: U.K. Rape Gang Case Exposes ‘Disgusting Cultural Beliefs’

  • The Aged P
  • The (Perhaps Slightly Less) Lonely Conservative
  • James Board
  • Maurice Myth
  • The Hayride
  • The Black Kettle

    • Kate Middleton Upskirt Photo?

    Blame Feminism?

  • Cassy Fiano

    • ‘Far More Grim’

  • The (Perhaps Slightly Less) Lonely Conservative

    • ‘The Weekly Sarah Palin Segment . . .’

  • The Camp of the Saints
  • Chicago Daily Observer

    • Not Just ‘Yes,’ But ‘Hell, Yes!’

  • House of Eratosthenes
  • Maggie’s Farm

    • Obligatory WikiLeaks Apocalypse Post

  • Instapundit
  • DaTechguy
  • Applesauce
  • Ric’s Rulez
  • The Camp of the Saints

    • LIVE AT FIVE – 11.29.10

  • DaTechguy

    • Mohamud’s Bad Luck Was Not Just Luck

  • The Sundries Shack

    • The Idiotic Eloquence of Tom Friedman

  • TrogloPundit

    • Shorter Obama: ‘In This False Dilemma, America Must Make a Manichean Choice Between My Indisputably Wise Policies and My Tendentious Straw-Man Caricature of Republican Policies’

  • The (Perhaps Slightly Less) Lonely Conservative
  • Blog de KingShamus

    • The Endless Delaware Post-Mortem

  • Goldfish and Clowns

    • The Perils of Presidential Oratory…

  • The Daley Gator

    • Why Doesn’t the SPLC Just Go Ahead and Call the Republican Party a ‘Hate Group’?

  • Wolves In Sheep’s Clothing

    • Best. Cable. Movie. Evah!

  • The Camp of the Saints

    • Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and Don’t Go Messing With the U.S. Marine Corps

  • Gay Patriot
  • Zion’s Trumpet

    • LIVE AT FIVE – 12.01.10

  • Katy Pundit


    • Lame-Duck Filibuster!

  • Republican Redefined

    • Alabama Democrats to Barack Obama: ‘Hey, Thanks for Killing Our Party!’

  • Katy Pundit
  • Practical State

    • Democrats Extremely Concerned About Extremism of Extreme GOP Extremists

  • Katy Pundit

    • How Gay Is the WikiLeaker?’

  • The Camp of the Saints

    • Julian Assange Has ‘Got the Editor of Time Magazine Hanging Breathlessly on His Every Word’

  • The Camp of the Saints
  • WyBlog
  • Maggie’s Farm

    • Missouri Senate 2012: Club for Growth Backing Sarah Steelman Over Jim Talent?

  • Nathan Cossey

    • As a Freelance Independent Blogger Consultant, I Have Enormous Sympathy …

  • The (Perhaps Slightly Less) Lonely Conservative
  • Jan The Marketing Man

    • Elsewhere on the Blogosphere

  • The (Perhaps Slightly Less) Lonely Conservative
  • The Sundries Shack

    • WikiLeaks and the Totalitarian Impulse

  • The Sundries Shack

    • LIVE AT FIVE – 12.03.10‚

  • Mind Numbed Robot
  • Pirates Cove

    • Scratch Newt for 2012

  • Dyspepsia Generation
  • Spartanburg TEA Party
  • Political Junkie Mom
  • Republican Redefined

    • Blogger Gets 2 Million Hits Because of His Insightful Commentary and Lucy Pinder’s Enormous Breasts, But Mainly . . .

  • The Daley Gator


    • You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself

  • Katy Pundit
    • Category: FMJRA Award

    Barrett Brown’s Lawyer Sends Me an Email Threatening ‘Legal Proceedings’

    Posted on | December 5, 2010 | 56 Comments

    Yesterday, I noted that Barrett Brown had threatened a libel suit in response to my post, “Narcissism, Isolation and Trolls.”

    The first thing to remember about such a situation is that the threat of a lawsuit is just that — a threat. And this is true even after someone gets a lawyer to send you a threatening letter, as Barrett Brown has now done:

    Mr. McCain,
    You recently posted several articles dedicated largely to the subject of my client Barrett Brown. One such article includes the following passage:

    Notice, however, that Brown speaks of “my colleague Michael Hastings,” expressing a collegiality that probably exists mainly in Brown’s mind. Brown and Hastings both had blogs at True/Slant, the now-defunct site which, despite funding from Forbes Media and Fuse Capital, flamed out in 15 months after publishing such memorable works as Rick Ungar’s “Send the Body to Glenn Beck.” But while Brown and Hastings were both True/Slant contributors, it wasn’t like they were hanging out around the office coffee machine, swapping stories.
    So here is Brown, staring into the camera and addressing “Rich” as if he were talking to a buddy, while referring to Hastings as his colleague, in a video recorded July 15 — three weeks after the June 23 publication of theVanity Fair piece that Brown references, and two weeks beforeTrue/Slant’s July 29 shutdown. The timing seems significant, as if this were a cry for help.
    You might get the idea that Barrett Brown is kind of a moody loner, isolated and alienated, attempting to invent a social context for himself where none exists.

    You state, as supposed fact, that Barrett Brown and MIchael Hastings are not colleagues or friends and rather that Barrett Brown is in essence a fraud who uses a false association with Hastings to ‘invent a social context for himself.’ Any amount of investigation on your part would have quickly and easily determined this to be false. Brown and Hastings’ relationship is professional, substantial, and well documented.

    Your post falsely insinuating that Brown is fraudulently representing himself and his professional relationships is especially damaging as Michael Hastings wrote the blurb for Brown’s upcoming book and Brown’s reputation and relationship with certain figures such as Hastings is integral to the development of Project PM, Brown’s distributed think-tank. You have published lies which you’ve claimed to be fact that, if taken seriously, substantially damage the financial interests and professional reputation of my client. As these lies are quite easily shown to be untrue it can be assumed that either you printed with malice what you knew to be false or you wrote your article with reckless disregard for its veracity.
    My client would like to resolve this matter quickly. We request that you link to the refutation he has posted and that you do so from the post from which the above passage is taken, and also that you publish the entirety of that refutation in an additional post at your blog. Alternatively, you may run a satisfactory retraction to the passage above, although Brown is not requesting that you take down any of your work.
    Please be informed that if this situation is not resolved we are prepared to begin legal proceedings to protect my client’s interests.

    Best,
    [Name of Lawyer]

    First of all, as anyone could see if they would care to investigate, Brown’s response is linked from my original post as a trackback. So the terms which Brown’s lawyer seeks “to resolve this matter quickly” were satisfied even before he threatened me.

    Second, as to my alleged “reckless disregard for . . . veracity,” this was addressed in my follow-up post yesterday. Barrett Brown himself has admitted to perpetrating falsehoods online as a “troll” in a post called “Confessions of a Phony Internet Muslim.” Given Brown’s self-confessed mendaciousness, my skepticism toward his assertion of collegiality with Michael Hastings would seem entirely justified.

    Third, the lawyer’s letter repeats Brown’s tendentious mischaracterization of my post. I wrote that Brown’s video expressed “a collegiality that probably exists mainly in Brown’s mind. . . . [I]t wasn’t like they were hanging out around the office coffee machine, swapping stories.” This was germain to my point that trolls (and remember, Brown has confessed to engaging in troll behavior) are a byproduct of the 21st-century workplace, which often results in people working in social isolation — that is, sitting alone in front of their computers, rather than in an office environment — and that the online world causes some people to fixate on virtual relationships with people they’ve never met in real life.

    This isolation has consequences. To quote a famous cartoon, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” And likewise on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a sociopathic narcissist unless, in your desperate attempts to bridge the yawning chasm of cognitive dissonance between your imagined importance and your actual irrelevance, you engage in behavior that makes your mental disorder blindingly apparent to everyone who cares to notice. Read more

    Category: American Power, Barrett Brown

    Helen Thomas: Blood on Her Hands

    Posted on | December 5, 2010 | 35 Comments

    Yesterday I joked about Helen Thomas’s latest expedition into Jew-baiting paranoia. Yet, ridiculous as it is, what Thomas is telling the Arab world is what too many people — Arab and non-Arab alike — are all too eager to believe: That American foreign policy vis-a-vis the Middle East is controlled by a conspiracy of wealthy Jews.

    Thomas cannot claim that her remarks were “taken out of context.” Jeff Dunentz at Yid With Lid has a 7-minute  video of Thomas’s remarks at Wayne State University’s campus in Dearborn, Michigan:

    Having taken the trouble to transcribe part of Thomas’s remarks, I ask you to notice what she uses as the precedent to her claim about politicians and the media being “owned by the Zionists”:

    “If we invade a country like Iraq for no reason that’s valid, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaeda – a very bad dictator, yes. But is that a reason to kill thousands of people? No reason to invade Aghanistan – no president has yet been able to defend it or explain it. . . . To kill or die, for what? . . . There is an actual campaign constantly, since I’ve been at the White House. Every president has known the truth about the Arab world, but they have not been able to act for the truth. And the whole question of money involved in politics – we are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There’s no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where there mouth is.”

    Thomas is not merely saying that “Jews own Hollywood” (an assertion that is actually not even controversial) or “Jews own Wall Street.” What Thomas is saying is that America waged war in Afghanistan and Iraq entirely because of “Zionist” influence.

    Is her assertion true? Was there “no reason” — or “no reason that’s valid” — for either of these military campaigns? Have thousands of American soldiers, and many thousands of Iraqis and Aghans, died merely to satisfy the blood-lust of Zionist Jews?

    Leaving aside any debate about the overall wisdom of Bush-era foreign policy, is it really the case that the root of the world’s problems is the insidious (and allegedly insuperable) influence of a Jewish conspiracy?

    Or is it not rather the case, as I am inclined to believe, that the incitement of hatred against Israel by Arab demagogues — whose ranks Helen Thomas proudly joins — is the real root of this problem?

    Egged on by bloodthirsty radicals both Arab and non-Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim, Palestinian leaders have made the annihilation of Israel their casus belli for decades, and have recruited killers around the world to rally to that banner.

    Everywhere that Islamist terrorists shed the blood of innocents, they do so in large measure because they have been indoctrinated with the belief that the continued existence of the Jewish state is an offense against Allah, so that there is a divine commandment for the destruction of Israel. Indoctrinated with that belief, the terrorists are waging what is quite literally a holy war that justifies the purposeful slaughter of men, women and children. Suicide bombers who seek death in the worldwide war against against “Zionism” do so in the belief that they are martyrs in a sacred cause.

    Allah commands this.

    And so does Helen Thomas.

    There is blood on her hands, just as there is blood on the hands of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and al-Qaeda. Indeed, by her slanderous accusations against Israel, Helen Thomas dips her hands in the blood of Bobby Kennedy and proclaims to the world that RFK was wrong to support Israel, and that Bobby’s killer was right.

    This is not a debate about U.S. foreign policy or about the terms of peace between Israel and Palestine.

    We can debate such things civilly and amicably. But there can be no room in that debate for those like Helen Thomas who foment anti-Semitic paranoia by making accusations of mala fides against Israel’s allies, claiming that anyone who defends Israel is “owned” by shadowy Zionist conspirators.

    Helen Thomas belongs to the Sirhan Sirhan wing of the Democrat Party, and it is high time we begin to speak frankly about how far and how deep this dangerous radicalism has spread.

    UPDATE: Thomas actually had the effrontery to invoke MLK. “No Mistake About It,” says Aaron Goldstein of The American Spectator.

    Category: Israel, Terrorism, Yid With Lid
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