The Other McCain

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

A 31-Year-Old Drifter

Posted on | November 18, 2010 | 5 Comments

Because Colorado is serious about punishing crime:

The bodies of an Ohio woman, her young son and a family friend have been discovered by police, wrapped in garbage bags and stuffed in a hollow tree, authorities said today.
Knox County Sheriff David Barber said they were told where to find the victims by lawyers for Matthew Hoffman, who is in custody for kidnapping 13-year-old Sarah Maynard.
The victims included Sarah’s mother Tina Herrmann, 32, her younger brother Kody Maynard, 10, and family friend Stephanie Sprang, 41. . . .
The bodies were found near Apple Valley, Ohio, miles away from Hoffman’s home where Sarah was found on Sunday by a SWAT team. The girl was bound and gagged in Hoffman’s basement in rural Mount Vernon, Ohio. . . .
Hoffman is a 31-year-old drifter who had recently been released from a Colorado prison after serving a term for arson and burglary . . .

Category: Colorado, Crime

A Year in Detention

Posted on | November 18, 2010 | 4 Comments

Because New Jersey is serious about punishing crime:

TRENTON, N.J. — All sex-related charges against a 15-year-old girl accused of selling her 7-year-old stepsister to a group of men and boys for sex at a party have been dropped, prosecutors said Thursday.
The 15-year-old watched as the 7-year-old was raped by as many as seven men and boys in a vacant apartment near the girls’ Trenton home on March 28, police said. As many as a dozen people were at the party in a crime-plagued public housing complex a mile from the dome of the New Jersey statehouse, investigators said.
The teenage girl originally was charged with aggravated sexual assault, criminal restraint, terroristic threats, promoting prostitution and endangering the welfare of a minor . . . [T]he girl pleaded guilty in juvenile court to child endangerment and was sentenced to a year in juvenile detention . . .

Category: Crime, New Jersey

VIDEO: Awesome Fireworks

Posted on | November 18, 2010 | 4 Comments

Being a total fireworks fanatic, I just have to share this video of the Bastille Day (July 14) show in Paris. It’s 31 minutes of pure awesomeness, although if you’re not as much into pyrotechnics as I am — and honestly, very few people are — you may wish to skip to the last couple of minutes for the finale. Click the full-screen version to really enjoy it.


L’intégralité du feu d’artifice du 14 juillet 2010
Uploaded by mairiedeparis. – Discover more animation and arts videos.

And just in case you’re totally into it, here’s a 3-minute video of the pre-show set-up, with interviews of the pyrotechnicians — in French:


14 juillet : le feu d’artifice se prépare!
Uploaded by mairiedeparis. – News videos hot off the press.

My French is a little rusty, but I think what he’s saying is, “Yessirree, Bubba! This here’s gonna blow up real good!”

Here are three videos from a fireworks festival in Castro, a seaside town in the “boot heel” of Italy:

And, finally, a highlight compilation of some of the year’s best shows:

Category: Fireworks, France, Video

Remember When Nancy Pelosi Promised Democrats Were Going to Clean Up the ‘Culture of Corruption’ in Washington?

Posted on | November 18, 2010 | 7 Comments

Charlie Rangel: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! And now he’s going to get a very serious wrist-slapping:

The House ethics committee’s chief counsel recommended Thursday that veteran Rep. Charles Rangel be censured for financial and fundraising misconduct as lawmakers neared closure on an embarrassing 2½-year-long scandal. . . .
Rangel on Tuesday was found guilty of 11 of the 13 charges of ethics violations against him by a panel of four Democrats and four Republicans.
That finding came after a two-year long investigation into charges against Rangel that relate to his personal finances and his fundraising efforts for a new center at New York City College. . . .
A censure or a reprimand is a legislative procedure where the full House, by majority vote on a simple resolution, expresses a formal disapproval of the conduct of a member, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The censured representative generally must stand before the House and receive the rebuke, but entails no actual loss of privileges.

In other words, a meaningless verbal scolding. He gets to keep his job, his pension, etc. Michelle Malkin live-blogged the hearings, complete with Rangel claiming he had been “smeared” and John Lewis calling Rangel a civil rights hero.

Category: Charlie Rangel, Congress, Corruption, Democrats, New York

Is Marriage Becoming ‘Obsolete’? Women, Children, Minorities Hardest Hit

Posted on | November 18, 2010 | 15 Comments

Forty percent of respondents to a Pew Center survey say that marriage is “obsolete.” Coincidentally — or perhaps not so coincidentally — 40% of U.S. births are to unwed mothers, as Jennifer Marshall of the Heritage Foundation noted in May:

Hardly anyone noticed this month when new data showed 40 percent of all births are to unmarried mothers. . . .
About two-thirds of poor children live in single-parent homes. Government spends $300 billion annually to assist low-income single parents.
But if poor single mothers married the fathers of their children, nearly two-thirds could escape poverty immediately. . . .
Yet discussions of poverty rarely address the collapse of marriage.

Strangely enough, although spending on entitlement programs contributes enormously to the ballooning federal deficit, some conservatives have called for a “truce” on social issues, preferring instead to focus on fiscal issues. Yet, as we see with the decline of marriage, many times social issues have a fiscal impact.

And what about marriage being “obsolete”? Tell it to Kim Kardashian who — after a series of “relationships” — finds herself 30 and unmarried, while both of her sisters are already married moms:

“Is it weird that I’m now the single one? It’s definitely a change for me,” she admits. “I have always been the one in a relationship. I like that role, I want that best friend partnership.”

Perhaps someone should share with Kim Kardashian that old-fashioned advice about “free milk and a cow.”

Girls who are willing to accept transient “relationships” in the thought that this is an acceptable substitute for real commitment — and by “commitment” I mean, ‘Til Death Do Us Part — are bargaining from a position of weakness.

Don’t mess around with guys just for the sake of being able to say you’ve got a boyfriend. You’re better off being alone than to let yourself be played like a chump.

Don’t let a guy string you along and waste your time. Tell him to get serious or get lost. Lots of guys will drift along in a “relationship” while keeping an eye out for their next girlfriend. If he doesn’t love you enough to ask you to marry him, he’s going to dump you sooner or later, honey. Save yourself the heartache.

If it can happen to Kim Kardashian, girls, it can happen to you: Used and discarded by a series of boyfriends, until one day you wake up at 30 and notice that guys aren’t flocking around like they were when you were 20 and thought you had all the time in the world.

End of fatherly lecture.

MSNBC’s Brian Alexander asks a relevant question: If marriage is “obsolete,” why is everybody so excited that Prince William and Kate Middleton are getting married?

Are fairy-tale happy endings only for royalty nowadays?

Category: Celebrities, Marriage, Sex

Saturday: Da Tech Guy on the Radio

Posted on | November 18, 2010 | Comments Off on Saturday: Da Tech Guy on the Radio

Please check this out: The Founding Father of the Axis of Fedora will have his own show starting Saturday at 5 p.m. on WCRN 830 AM in Worcester, Massachusetts.

I’ll be a guest on the show and possible topics include Bristol Palin, Andrew Sullivan, Keith Olbermann, Kate Middleton’s breasts, the chances for Alyssa Milano winning an Oscar and the prospect of the Taliban surrendering now that they know Smitty’s on the way.

Well, those are possible topics. Anything is possible. But the overwhelming likelihood is that we’ll be talking about politics and the impact of the 2010 mid-term elections.

Go check out Da Tech Guy’s blog for more info.

Category: Da Tech Guy, Talk Radio

Emergency! Democrats Trying to Shove DREAM Amnesty Through Lame-Duck

Posted on | November 18, 2010 | 8 Comments

Forget the TSA gropers at the airport. Forget Dancing With the Stars. Forget everything and focus on this:

During his re-election campaign in Nevada, [Harry] Reid said he would try again to pass the legislation, known as the Dream Act. And in a Twitter message on Wednesday evening, his office said he would try to do so in the current session as a stand-alone bill.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, has been discussing the immigration measure with Democratic colleagues but has not yet scheduled a vote on it, a spokesman said.
The legislation would give legal residency to immigrants who arrived in the United States before age 16 and resided here for at least five years . . .

Call it the Million Anchor Baby Amnesty Act, or call it the Abolition of American Sovereignty Act. Whatever you call the bill, the important thing is to call you senators and congressmen and tell them to stop this damned legislative monstrosity.

This is especially urgent for residents of Arizona, Maine, Alaska, Kansas, Texas and Florida, because Michelle Malkin says you’ve got Republican senators who haven’t spoken out against the DREAM Act: 

ARIZONA
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN
202-224-2235 or 480-897-6289

MAINE
SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE
202-224-5344 or 207-874-0883

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS
202-224-2523 or 207-945-0417

ALASKA
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI
202-224-6665 or 907-271-3735

KANSAS
SEN. SAM BROWNBACK
202-224-6521 or 785-233-2503

TEXAS
SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON
202-224-5922 or 214-361-3500

FLORIDA
SEN. GEORGE LEMIEUX
202-224-3041 or 904-398-8586

So if you live in those states, it’s urgent that you call those senators now and give them an earful — a polite and civil earful, but still an earful — about the need to oppose this bill.

Ace of Spades has a list of “Ten Things You Need To Know About S.3827, The DREAM Act.”

Category: Ace of Spades, Harry Reid, Immigration, Michelle Malkin, Senate

Bristol and the Haters

Posted on | November 18, 2010 | 13 Comments

From her Facebook page:

Willow and I shouldn’t have reacted to negative comments about our family. We apologize. On a nicer note, thank you for supporting the great competition in Dancing with the Stars!

Thank you supporters who continue to support. The haters are already pulling out all the stops this week to destroy.

“May we always be happy, and may our enemies know it!”

That’s just it, you see? People can’t stand to see the Palins happy. If you are a Republican, ask yourself this: Does it bother you to see Malia and Sasha Obama smiling? Or, would you take joy in bad things happening to Chelsea Clinton?

Why, then, are Democrats so delighted at anything they can do to cause misery for the Palin family?

I blame Andrew Sullivan, who has spent more than two years demonizing Sarah Palin.

Some will say it is unfair of me to blame Sullivan alone. And the Palin-haters are all about fairness, you know.

UPDATE: Hmmm. It appears that the same idea — that Palin-haters can’t stand them being happy — was recently discussed by S.E. Cupp, but may have first occurred to Professor William Jacobson in October 31, 2008: Why Do They Hate Sarah Palin So Much? She’s Happy.

Category: Andrew Sullivan, Celebrities, Sarah Palin
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