The Other McCain

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

The Logical Conclusion of ‘Social Justice’

Posted on | September 9, 2021 | Comments Off on The Logical Conclusion of ‘Social Justice’

When mobs rioted in Minneapolis last year, the chaos and destruction became a fundraising opportunity for the Minneapolis Freedom Fund (MFF), an organization dedicated to keeping criminals on the street. Simply put, MFF bail suspects out of jail, no questions asked:

The non-profit Minnesota Freedom Fund says this system of bail is “unjust,” and that wealth should never determine who is kept in jail, which is exactly what the American bail system does. In 2016, the non-profit formed and began raising funds and bailing Minnesota residents out of jail.
“We have always prioritized those who are unable to pay for freedom and face the greatest level of danger and marginalization,” wrote Greg Lewin, MFF interim director. . . .
“Putting it bluntly, cash bail is an abusive system that criminalizes poverty and takes a disproportionate toll on Black people, indigenous people, and people of color. It doesn’t matter whether you are guilty or innocent – if you cannot afford to post your bail, you will stay in jail until your trial,” wrote MFF’s Lewin. . . .
“Our goal has always been to free as many people as possible and then put ourselves out of business by ending pretrial detention,” Lewin wrote. . . .
For MFF, it’s not about the crime, but the system.
“I often don’t even look at a charge when I bail someone out,” Lewin said. “I will see it after I pay the bill because it is not the point. The point is the system we are fighting.”

It is an abuse of language on a grand scale to say that requiring bail “criminalizes poverty.” The Eighth Amendment of our Constitution reads: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Interestingly enough, that language is borrowed from the English Bill of Rights of 1689, a statement inspired by the punishment of Titus Oates, the perjurer who fabricated “The Popish Plot” and sent innocent men to their deaths.

Who can say whether the bail requirement in any particular case is “excessive”? Over the years, the question has been examined by legislatures, courts and commissions. Certainly the intent is not to “criminalize poverty” and, as our Constitution also guarantees (Sixth Amendment) the right to a speedy trial, our nation’s jails are not filled with innocent men languishing behind bars for no good reason.

If you know anything about how the criminal justice system actually works, the real cost of bail is usually 10% of the amount assessed. You go to a bail bondsman, sign an agreement that makes you liable for the entire amount if you don’t show up in court, and pay 10% up front. So if bail is assessed at $10,000, you (or your family members) only have to come up with $1,000 — not an “excessive” amount. There was an entire reality show, Dog The Bounty Hunter, about rounding up bail-jumpers who skipped out after signing bond agreements.

This is the “system” which MFF is “fighting.” Why are they fighting the system? Because the system works — MFF is run by radicals who want to destroy America, period, and destroying the criminal justice system is merely part of that radical agenda. When I say that the existing bail system works, what I mean is that, because the vast majority of criminals in America’s jails are actually guilty, bailing them out between the time of their arrest and the time of their trial would only grant them more opportunity to commit crimes. Simple question: Why do you think nobody who actually knows them is willing to bail them out?

Suppose your son or your brother, whom you know to be a law-abiding citizen in general, goes to a party and gets into a drunken fight that results in him being arrested on an assault charge. Such things happen when people get drunk at parties, and you don’t condone this behavior, but this is the first time your son or brother has ever had any problem with the law, and it is reasonable for you to hope that he will be able to get a plea deal to avoid prison. So his bail is set at $5,000 and you go to the bail bondsman, sign the agreement and pay $500 so he can go back to work while he awaits trial. This is the “system.” It works.

The system also works (or, at least it did, before the “social justice” mob got involved) in terms of keeping career criminals behind bars. Most serious crime in America is committed by a comparative handful of habitual criminals who cycle in and out of the criminal justice system. They’re either behind bars or they’re committing crimes — never once in their lives have they done anything else. So the 18-year-old is convicted of robbery, sent to prison for a couple of years, gets back on the street and within a matter of weeks or months, is arrested again. Is anyone who knows this 20-year-old felon going to bail him out? Probably not, and therefore he will remain locked up in jail until he cops a plea deal and goes to prison, where he belongs. Problem solved — the system works.

Unless you’re a criminal, or the kind of radical who wants to destroy America, there’s nothing wrong with our bail system. And turning loose dangerous criminals has serious consequences:

A bail fund promoted by Vice President Kamala Harris helped lead to the release of an alleged Minneapolis domestic abuser — who has been charged with murder in a road-rage slaying.
George Howard, 47, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder for allegedly shooting Luis Damian Martinez Ortiz, 38, during a road-rage incident on Interstate 94 in Minneapolis on Aug. 29, KSTP reported.
Surveillance video reportedly showed Ortiz getting out of his blue BMW and approaching Howard’s white Volvo before Howard shot the other man and fled. Ortiz died from a gunshot wound to the chest, officials said.
Just weeks earlier, Howard, a Minneapolis man barred from having a firearm due to previous convictions, was released on $11,500 bond in a domestic assault case on Aug. 6, court records cited by Fox News show. He was bailed out by the Minnesota Freedom Fund — which was touted last year by Harris.

Wait a minute — you’re driving a Volvo, but you can’t afford to pay bail? Do victims of oppression drive Volvos? It would have cost George Howard only $1,150 to get out of jail, and surely a Volvo driver should be able to come up with such a modest amount, so why did MFF even need to get involved? Oh, let me guess: It’s because they piled up such a huge stash of cash last year that MFF is now so desperate to spend this money that they’re bailing out all kinds of criminals, no questions asked.

Knowing what we know about criminal recidivism rates, it is merely a matter of arithmetic — statistical probability — that many of those bailed out by MFF will subsequently be charged with serious crimes committed while they were free on bail. What was George Howard’s record?

Howard’s criminal history in Minnesota includes three convictions for disorderly conduct, and one each for assault and for illegal weapons possession.

Convicted felons are prohibited from possessing firearms. George Howard had at least five convictions on his record — note the qualifying phrase “in Minnesota,” which suggests Howard may have a record in other states — and while “disorderly conduct” may describe trivial misdemeanors, we don’t know the facts of those cases. Very commonly, a misdemeanor conviction is the result of a plea bargain in which the suspect was originally charged with a felony, e.g., arrested for assault, but pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. Whatever the specifics of the disorderly conduct cases on Howard’s record, the “illegal weapons possession” charge indicates he had at least one prior conviction that disqualified him from firearms possession, and that was before he was charged with domestic violence. Anyone who investigated Howard’s record would conclude that he had violent tendencies, exactly the kind of tendencies that would lead to shooting somebody in a “road rage” incident. But remember George Lewin said he usually doesn’t “even look at a charge when I bail someone out,” because the point is “the system.”

The reason Kamala Harris endorsed this radical organization is because she shares their goal of destroying “the system.” That’s what the riots in Minneapolis and other cities last year were really about — the idea that “social justice” requires complete destruction of our society, especially including law enforcement. Kamala Harris and MFF want to empty the prisons and turn loose an army of violent criminals to terrorize America, which is why MFF bailed out a previously convicted sex offender who was accused of raping an 8-year-old girl. If you voted for Kamala Harris, that is the agenda that you were voting for. And it’s everywhere now.

There is no place in America where you are safe, because Democrats everywhere are committed to an agenda of turning loose dangerous criminals who ought to be behind bars. In any community where Democrats elect the district attorney (i.e., most major American cities), this agenda of “social justice” is abetting robbery, rape and murder.




 

Category: Crime, Democrats, Minnesota

In The Mailbox: 09.08.21

Posted on | September 8, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.08.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Best fox waifu.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: The Riddle of Steel
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1469
357 Magnum: Australia Builds Its Version Of The Berlin Wall
EBL: FAUCI & THE CHICOMS LIED, MILLIONS DIED
Twitchy: Biden Demands Kellyanne Conway’s Resignation From USAFA Board, But She Has A Better Idea
Louder With Crowder: Doocy Shocks Psaki – More Terrorists Than Women In Taliban Government, What’s Up With That?
Vox Popoli: The Mark Of The Australian Beast, The Ugliness Of Burning Man, and Fake Votes, Fake President

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: 150,000 Dutch Protest In Amsterdam, also, The Unvaxed Will Be the New Smokers
American Greatness: Alleged Domestic Abuser Bailed Out Due To Fund Supported By Biden/Harris Campaign Now Under Arrest For Murder
American Power: Actor Michael K. Williams Found Dead In NYC Apartment, also, Indian Vs. Black Vigilante Killings Upend South African Town
American Thinker: How To Tell What The Government Fears Most, also, President Biden Must be Impeached
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Biden Extends Sanctions Against The Cuban Dictatorship For Another Year, also, Iconic Miami Cuban Restaurant Fritas Domino Closes Forever
BattleSwarm: Treating Coronavirus With Ivermectin & Our Crappy Media
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Glaciers & Mesas On Mars
Cafe Hayek: Are You A Racist?
CDR Salamander: Reinforcing Failure At Sea
Da Tech Guy: The History Of Old & Feeble Men As Head Of State Is A Tragic One, Hostile Environment + Politicized Classes = Bye Bye College, and The Real Excommunication Question
Don Surber: Dowd & Noonan Should Retire, Biden’s September Nightmare, and Anger Rises Against Biden
First Street Journal: Theodore McCarrick Illustrates The Problem, But He’s Not The Only Problem
Fred On Everything: A Military Solution To A Commercial Problem
The Geller Report: Biden Savaged In New Jersey, also, Arizona Canvassing Results Released – Election Steal Confirmed, Calls For Decertifying 2020 Election
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, A Brief History Of Labor, and Panning Across Messier 3
Hollywood In Toto: Can Joe Rogan Break The Back of Fake News Before It’s Too Late? also, Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 Ignores The Woke Elephant In The Room
The Lid: Smoking Gun – Fauci Caught In Gain Of Function Lie
Legal Insurrection: Virginia Education Department Blasted Over 9/11 Teacher Sensitivity Training Video, Video Game Developer Tripwire Ousts CEO Over Pro-Life Opinion, and Multiple States Suing Administration Over Title IX Interpretation
Nebraska Energy Observer: Tradition, also, Big Brother
Outkick: Woke Police Try To Shame Joel Klatt, Fail Miserably, CNN’s Ratings Are An Unfixable Disaster, and Fans of Baseball Should Root Against Small Market Teams, And Here’s Why
Power Line: College Men & The Turtle Theory, also, The Fallacious Fauci Revisited 
Shark Tank: Rep. Guillermo Smith Wants Ban On Gay Male Blood Donors Lifted
Shot In The Dark: Well Lookie Here, also, Vibrant
The Political Hat: Casting +3 Cringe With Social Justice Buttons
This Ain’t Hell: Stupid People Of The Week, One Waffle House Serving Knuckle Sandwiches, and Four Of The Five Gitmo Prisoners Exchanged for Bowe Bergdahl Now Occupy Senior Taliban Posts
Transterrestrial Musings: The Latest IPCC Report, What is Microgravity? and “Our” COVID Policies
Victory Girls: WaPo Reporter Drools Over “Compassionate” Biden, also, Jimmy Kimmel Really Despises You
Volokh Conspiracy: “How Can We Run A 12th Century Regime Without A 21st Century Messaging App?”
Weasel Zippers: Taliban Giving Bagram Airbase To The Chicoms? also, Chuck Schumer Lies That All Americans Who Wanted To Leave Afghanistan Are Out
The Federalist: Our “Devoutly Catholic” President Is Neither Devout Nor Really Catholic, also, National Archives Slaps “Harmful Content” Warning On Constitution & Other Founding Documents
Mark Steyn: I’ve Been Everywhere, New Links For A New (Jewish) Year, and Fauci Bats A Thousand

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Category: Linkagery

First, A Word From Zilla

Posted on | September 8, 2021 | Comments Off on First, A Word From Zilla

— by Wombat-socho


Silicon Valley delenda est.


Received in e-mail late last night:

Hi, Y’all. It’s Zilla.
I’m out of the blog game due to things I got no time to explain.
I am reaching out through the ether because BOB BELVEDERE (The Camp of the Saints TCOTS) is getting ready to join our dear Amusing Bunni on the other side.
Bob is at the end of a very long and brave battle with cancer. It is in his brain now. He is still the same guy we know and love but he does not have much longer.
I firmly believe it is better to honor our friends who are dyeing while they can still see and feel the love.
Bob is a happy warrior.
A true patriot and indefatigable fighter for Freedom & Individual Liberty.
Plz pray for him, contact him while he is still here, and spread the word among OUR people.
I’m hoping we can give Bob an Irish Wake while he is still here to enjoy it.
I am asking you all to honor Bob and show him all of the love while he is still with us.
We do not have much longer.
Please & thank you.
Love,
Mare (Zilla)

Pour one out for Bob, guys and gals of the commentariat.

Category: Zilla of the Resistance

In The Mailbox: 09.07.21

Posted on | September 8, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.07.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

The King of Knights is tied up at the moment…

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: Conspiracy Theory + Time = Reality
357 Magnum: “The Best Lack All Conviction”, also, The Gun-Hating Left Will Swear They Need More Laws
EBL: Willard Scott, RIP, Rolling Stone & Rachel Maddow Busted Over Fake Ivermectin Story, and Happy Rosh Hashanah! Shana Tova!
Twitchy: Biden Says All Our Electricity Will Be Generated With Zero Emissions By 2020, also, NBC News Says Classrooms Have Become A Political Battleground, Looks To Randi Weingarten For Comment
Louder With Crowder: Rose McGowan To Hillary – “Here Comes The Bomb”, also, Las Vegas Teacher Accused Of Taping Mask To Child’s Face
Vox Popoli: An Induced Economic Coma, Prove The Damages, and Means Vs. Ends
Vaccine Impact: COVID Shots Killing, Crippling Teens In Record Numbers
Stoic Observations: You Don’t Care About AI

 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Australians, It’s Time To Refuse To Be Socialised
American Conservative: Can The Right Fight Corporate Power? also, Progressivism As Camouflage
American Greatness: Biden Surrendered To The Taliban; The GOP Must Not Surrender To Biden, also, The Failure Of American Leadership
American Power: New Jersey – God Have Mercy, also, About The Climate Change “Consensus”
American Thinker: American Education – Rotten From Top To Bottom, also, What If Intel Officers Were Asking The Questions At A Biden Press Conference?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye Blue Monday, also, Animal’s Daily Californey Recall News
Babalu Blog: Coast Guard Has Sent Back 35 Cuban Refugees This Past Week, While Cubans Suffer Shortages & The Health System Collapses, The Communist Regime Invests In Hotels, and NYT Inserts Pro-Regime Content In Op-Ed By Dissidents
BattleSwarm: A Short Video History Of The Holodomor, also, YouTube Suppressing Any Mention Of Ivermectin
Behind The Black: House NASA Budget – Billions For “Infrastructure”, Not One Penny For Lunar Lander, Ingenuity Completes 13th Flight, and Today’s Blacklisted American Documents
Cafe Hayek: Hayek & The New Orleans Saints In One Missive, Economics Circa 1820, and Eradicating COVID Is A Dangerous & Expensive Fantasy
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday, also, The Fall of Kabul – A Complete Death Of Hope
Da Tech Guy: The Military Personnel Crisis In 2023, A Sure Sign The Connected Elites Are All Out Of Afghanistan, and Report From Louisiana – The Soros District Attorneys Are Killing Our Cities
Don Surber: Democrats Keep Arming Our Enemies, Professor Wants White People To Kill Themselves, and The Spoiled Brat Left Gets a Comeuppance In Texas
First Street Journal: The Unintended (?) Consequences Of Going Woke, also, Philadelphia Sports Writers Might Explain Philly’s Murder Rate
The Geller Report: Lost Ballots In Three States Exceed Biden’s Victory Margin, Video Of 240 Democrat Operatives Dumping Thousands Of Ballots Into Georgia Drop Boxes In The Dead Of Night, and “F*** Joe Biden” Chants Erupt At College Football Games
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, Bennu Is A Hazardous Asteroid, and Messier 96
Hollywood In Toto: Time’s Up Implodes As Celebs Flee Disgraced Womens’ Rights Group, also, The 16 Best Horror Movies On Tubi
The Lid: CNN Guest Suggests “Federal Abortion Force” Could Operate In Texas, also, An IMPORTANT Rosh Hashanah Message To The Gentiles From The Tribe
Legal Insurrection: DOJ Retreating From Defense Of Biden’s Anti-White Racial Preferences, Southeastern Louisiana U Guts School Newspaper Budget To Pay For Two New Title IX Staffers, and Teacher Justifies Injecting Her Leftist Political Views Into Teaching History
Nebraska Energy Observer: Random Observations, also, A Holiday Weekend Post
Outkick: College Football Fans Declare Independence From COVID, Notre Dame/FSU Game Full of Drama, and The [Hated] Yankees Collapsing After Another Devastating Loss To The God-Awful Orioles
Power Line: Axe The Honor Roll!, COVID Deaths This Year Higher Than Last Year, and Goodbye To Coal? Not So Fast!
Shark Tank: DeSantis Dismisses 2024 President Talk As “Manufactured”, “Nonsense”, also, STOCK Act Complaint Filed Against Wasserman-Schultz
Shot In The Dark: Location Location Location, Feeling Strangely Scientific, and This Is What “Building Back Better” Looks Like
STUMP: Social Security – Benefit Terminations & The Trust Fund Running Out
The Political Hat: Woke Banking
This Ain’t Hell: People Biden Apparently Didn’t Leave Behind In Afghanistan, Calgary Man Charged With Posing As A Soldier, and Another Five Are Known
Transterrestrial Musings: The Kardashian Butt, also, The Journalistic BS Detector
Victory Girls: Mark Milley Interview With Jen Griffin Goes Pear-Shaped, State Department Bad At Everything Including Lying, and Panjshir May Fall To Taliban With Pakistan’s Help
Volokh Conspiracy: The Media Falls For Viral Hoax About Ivermectin ODs Straining Rural Hospitals
Weasel Zippers: Biden’s Chief Of Staff Admits They Have No Plan To Evacuate Stranded Americans From Afghanistan, Now It’s A Hostage Crisis, and Free COVID Unemployment Money Ends Today – Back To Work, Slackers!
The Federalist: Archbishop Cordileone – It’s Not Political, Catholics Must Fight Abortion Like They Fought Segregation, also, Rand Paul Vindicated! Fauci Funded Red Chinese Gain Of Function Research!
Mark Steyn: The Girl Can’t Help It, Defeat & Dishonesty, and Subterranean Tone-Sick Blues

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Category: Linkagery

The Labor Day Book Post

Posted on | September 6, 2021 | Comments Off on The Labor Day Book Post

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Well, first some good news from Atlanta and points north: Larry Correia and John Brown took the Dragon for best Military SF novel with Gun Runner, while Eric Flint & Charles Gannon won Best Alternate History novel for 1637: No Peace Beyond The Line. (via Baen Books on MeWe). It looks like the intrusion of Pink Goo/Hugo/Nebula-style SF into the awards last year was a one-off thing, which is Good. Also, per David Drake’s newsletter, the good news is that he doesn’t have Parkinson’s after all; the bad news is that whatever ails him is affecting his interest in/ability to write, so we may not be seeing anything new from him for a while.*
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Thanks to the generosity of the commentariat, I bought a mess of books over the last couple of months and actually read many of them; in addition, I finally got around to visiting the historic Tonopah Town Library, about more which anon; suffice it to say for now that their SF section is a confused, eclectic mess, but bringing it up to speed and enlarging it is now on my rather lengthy to-do list; I am also looking into giving them the ability to lend out e-books, which they don’t currently have.

So let’s take it from the top. Kurt Schlichter’s The Split is the sixth of the Kelly Turnbull novels set in a future America where the red and blue states have peacefully gone their separate ways, but the peace is more de jure than de facto, which is where Kelly comes in. This book has him on a mission to Boston to recover a software package from a mad MIT professor, but other people are looking for it too, and soon enough he gets tangled up with some bank robbers from Southie and in some nasty infighting among the blue state factions. As usual in the Turnbull novels, a lot of people wind up dead, but in the end it all works out for the best. If you liked the first five books in the series, you’re going to like this one too.

Speaking of Larry Correia as I was previously, Monster Hunter Bloodlines is out, and while I really liked Guardian (which was mostly written by Sarah Hoyt), Larry is really at the top of his form here. MHI and the Monster Control Bureau are both on the trail of a powerful artifact that’s being traded from one batch of evil scum to another, but it gets jacked by a shape-shifting fifth party who turns out to be a half-Japanese teenage yokai with blood ties to MHI. Hilarity and violence ensue, a major battle at the MHI compound involving everybody from Owen and Julie and Earl to Melvin the troll and the legion of uplifted lab rats goes down, and the book culminates in an audience with a queen of the Fae in Brazil where we finally discover former Special Task Force Unicorn honcho Stricken’s true name…unless he’s lying. Guess we’ll have to tune in for book 9! Two gory thumbs up for Bloodlines, which was well worth the $31 I paid to get it autographed at Uncle Hugo’s, which is still raising funds for rebuilding. 

I thought from the description that Sarah Hoyt’s Other Rhodes was going to be a screwball comedy, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. This is a noir tale set in a future where cyborgs are illegal, harboring one is equally illegal – but Lily Gilden’s only clue to the disappearance of her private detective husband is the crazy cyborg in her airlock claiming to be a fictional detective from the videogame she and her husband used to play. The situation forces her to play Archie Goodwin to the cyborg’s Nero Wolfe, and plunges her into a nightmarish underworld she hadn’t even dreamed existed. Four smoking blasters out of five; available on KU if you just want to borrow and not buy.

Bob Zimmerman of the Behind The Black blog sent me a review copy of Conscious Choice, and I somehow managed to lose the damn thing. This was awkward, since I’d promised him a review, so I went ahead and spent the $4 in the faint hope that Murphy would reveal where the original was. (He didn’t.) Still, $4 was a real deal, because this by God is a righteous Swiss Army knife of a book. Not only is it a concise and very readable history of how and why slavery became an established part of society in the Southern states, it further explains why “the Peculiar Institution” did not also take root in the Northern states. Zimmerman never uses Andrew Breitbart’s line about politics being downstream from culture, but he doesn’t have to – his history of Virginia colonial politics in the 17th century pounds that fact right up your snout. There’s no way to avoid it. The failure of the Virginia Royalists to encourage solid family structures, supported by religious and educational establishments, led directly to the poisoned seed of slavery taking root in the Virginia plantations, and later in the rest of the Southern states as well. It may seem quite a jump from 17th century Virginia to 21st century space exploration, but Zimmerman’s logic regarding the many flaws of the Outer Space Treaty and its likelihood to produce equally poisoned fruit is difficult to argue against, and I for one am not even going to make the effort. This book is useful for refuting the lies of the 1619 Project, for understanding the breakdown of civil society and public order in America today, and ultimately as a call to arms against allowing the same defects to poison the final frontier. Buy this and read it. 

Sometimes you can’t go home again, and so it was with Don Pendleton’s Executioner series. I blew through the first two books but found the third a struggle, and since I was reading these for fun, I put it down and didn’t go back. I don’t think I’ll be reading the rest of paperbacks when I find the box they’re in. 

Things From Outer Space, edited by Hank Davis, is a mixed bag – there’s some good stuff like David Drake’s “The Hunting Ground” and the original alien horror SF tales, Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out Of Space” and Campbell’s “Who Goes There?”, but there’s a lot of stuff that frankly just isn’t in the same league as the foregoing. 2.5 out of 5 tentacles. Brief Cases, on the other hand…Jim Butcher delivers. This collection of short stories from the Dresden Files is all thriller and no filler. They’re not all about Harry, but I think the ones about Molly may be the best of the lot, especially the one that takes her to Alaska for some OJT on her Winter Queen duties and an encounter with Warden Ramirez. That one hurt. 5/5; borrowed it from the town library, but may be buying my own copy soon. 

*I’m trying to be optimistic here.

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Category: Books

Rule 5 Sunday: Mindy Robinson

Posted on | September 6, 2021 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Mindy Robinson

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Yeah, I’ve featured the populist actress-turned-politician before, but this was an especially cute pic.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1463, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

Animal Magnetism: Rule 5 Fossil Fuels Friday Part 1, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: Roseanne Carter Cash, American Flag Rule 5, Barry White, Stunning Street Opera, A Trip To The Moon, Emily Miller, The Lettermen, The Devil’s Daughters, The Courier, The Defeated, Seven Busloads Of Brides For Seven Taliban?, and Marilyn Monroe.

A View From The Beach: Olivia Pascale, Well, We Could Give it Back, Fish Pic Friday – Kyndal Lynn, Make You a Believer, The Wednesday Wetness- Pool Party, Oregon, My Oregon!, Tattoo Tuesday, Mission Accomplished!, The Monday Morning Stimulus and the Sunday Sunrise

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Pretty Pink Rose

Posted on | September 5, 2021 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Pretty Pink Rose

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Musashi-chan at the beach.

Rule 5 Sunday: Rebecca de Mornay
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Atrocity Narrative in Action, or Why Is @BenMakuch Obsessed With Neo-Nazis?
Bacon Time
EBL
357 Magnum

College Softball Lesbian Sex Scandal!
The Political Hat
EBL
357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: Ricochet
A View From The Beach
EBL

All ‘Male Feminists’ Are Creeps, and This Guy Is Exhibit A for the Prosecution
EBL

Bill Belichick Bets Big on Mac Jones; Patriots Release Veteran QB Newton
EBL

Biden Speech Signals Beginning of Media Effort to ‘Pivot’ Away Afghanistan
Dark Brightness
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 08.31.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 09.01.21 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 09.01.21 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 09.02.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Crazy People Are Dangerous
EBL
357 Magnum

Jews Died, Biden Lied — Synagogue Says He Never Visited After 2018 Massacre
EBL
357 Magnum

Why Do Democrats (and Rick Wilson) Want to Kill Texas Babies So Much?
EBL

In The Mailbox: 09.03.21
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending September 3:

  1.  EBL (14)
  2.  357 Magnum (10)
  3.  A View From The Beach (7)
  4.  Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

‘The Agony of Defeat’

Posted on | September 5, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘The Agony of Defeat’

You’ve probably never heard of Vinko Bogataj, but the Slovenian ski-jumper once possessed a certain notoriety. At a 1970 competition in Germany, Bogataj crashed spectacularly, suffering a concussion and a broken ankle. For years thereafter, film footage of Bogataj’s crash was replayed in the opening sequence of ABC’s Wide World of Sports to illustrate “the agony of defeat” (in contrast to “the thrill of victory”).

 

In so much as athletic competition is about anything more than entertainment, recreation and physical fitness, it is about learning to cope with adversity, giving us life lessons about persistence. Historically, organized athletic competition is associated with the training of warriors, which is why, for example, throwing the javelin remains an Olympic event. When we speak of running a marathon, we pay tribute to Pheidippides, the Athenian courier who was dispatched from the battlefield of Marathon in 490 B.C. to inform the rulers that the Greeks had won a victory over the invading Persian army. After running the 26-mile distance, Pheidippides legendarily arrived where the Athenian archons were sitting in counsel, anxious for news. Pheidippides gasped: “Rejoice! Victory!” And then died on the spot.

Speed, strength and dexterity are all useful qualities developed in athletics, and useful to the soldier, but endurance is what really counts. Ask any soldier what a 12-mile ruck march is like. Even for a young man in his healthy prime, a long march under a 50-pound pack is an ordeal that tests not merely physical conditioning, but also requires mental toughness — an iron-willed determination to keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how sore and exhausted he may be.

“The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton,” is a quote attributed to the Duke of Wellington, who commanded the victorious Allied army in that famous battle, and if the quote is apocryphal, it nevertheless accurately captures the role of athletics in preparing youth for the demands of a warrior’s life. Even the greatest must occasionally suffer “the agony of defeat” — and keep playing the game.

This determination to keep fighting, even when it seems all hope is lost, is what Winston Churchill famously expressed in that dark moment after Dunkirk when Britain found itself desperately alone, facing Hitler’s triumphant war machine, and threatened with invasion:

“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

So he said, and so it was — although it never came to fighting the Germans on the beaches and fields of England, because the Royal Air Force defeated the Luftwaffe, preventing Hitler’s planned invasion.

Well, there’s Hitler, and then there’s Clemson — but before you say “Godwin’s Law,” however, permit me to clarify that I am not comparing the Clemson University football team to der Führer, even though my Clemson alumni friend Jeff Quinton has lately been ragging the University of Alabama on social media, and thus comparing Clemson to Nazis would be fair game, by the rules of Southern football trash-talking.

Unlimited retaliation — if you trash my team, there are no limits to what I can say about your team. So if you go hating on ’Bama, don’t expect a ’Bama fan to turn the other cheek. Clemson is a Nazi football team, and Dabo Swinney is Hitler, and therefore — to extend this absurd analogy — the Georgia Bulldogs are the Red Army and Saturday night’s game was the Battle of Stalingrad. In a brutal defensive struggle, Georgia did not get a single offensive touchdown, but Bulldog linebacker Nolan Smith intercepted a pass from Clemson quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei and returned it 74-yards for a TD. That would prove to be all Georgia needed, as they held on to win 10-3. Georgia’s defense sacked Uiagalelei seven times. Losing their opener puts Clemson in a tough spot, if they hope to return to the championship playoff, which has never had a team with two defeats on their record. Therefore, Clemson would almost certainly have to win every remaining game to have any chance at the title.

Alabama fans know what that’s like. In the third game of the 2015 season, Alabama was ranked No. 2 when they got beat by Ole Miss, and then won the rest of their games to eventually earn a shot at the national title, defeating Clemson 45-40 in the championship game. Alabama and Clemson have met in the championship game twice since then, with Clemson winning the rematches in 2017 and 2019.

Alabama won its opener Saturday, trouncing the University of Miami 44-13 in a game that wasn’t really even as close as that lopsided score. Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young lived up to the pre-season hype, throwing four touchdowns — the most ever by a first-time starting QB for ’Bama, eclipsing the record previously held jointly by Joe Namath and Mac Jones. There had been some pre-game trash-talking by Miami QB D’Eriq King. but the Crimson Tide defense repaid that on the field, sacking King four times and intercepting him twice. Miami had been ranked 14th coming into the game, and the question now is whether (a) they were overrated or (b) Alabama is just that good.

Speaking of overrated, why the heck was North Carolina ranked 10th? They got beat 17-0 by unranked Virginia Tech, which is now the top team in the ACC. Along with the losses by Clemson and Miami, Georgia Tech and Duke also lost their season openers, while FSU plays Notre Dame tonight. The ACC is a great conference, if you like basketball, but when it comes to football, the SEC is the undisputed powerhouse.

What about the Big Ten, you ask? Indiana can’t even spell “Indiana” right, and they lost their opener to Iowa, 34-6. Ohio State beat Minnesota 45-31, but does anyone care? Maryland opened with a non-conference victory over West Virginia, 30-24. Michigan State beat Northwestern 38-21. Illinois, which had stunned Nebraska 30-22 in their Aug. 28 opener, somehow managed to lose 37-30 this week to USTA (University of Texas-San Antonio). But the really important Big Ten game this week, from my perspective, was a matchup between two teams ranked in the Top 20. Badger fans were going wild in Madison before 12th-ranked Wisconsin met 19th-ranked Penn State, but alas, Badger QB Graham Mertz threw two interceptions, and the Nittany Lions won 16-10. But don’t blame the Wisconsin quarterback, blame David Hookstead.

Hookstead, a Wisconsin alumnus and sports editor of the Daily Caller, made the mistake last week of writing, “I’m not an Alabama fan at all.” But you know who is an Alabama fan? God, that’s who. By trash-talking Alabama, Hookstead unwittingly invoked a curse on his beloved Badgers, who suffered “the agony of defeat” as punishment.

Wisconsin is now doomed to be the Vinko Bogataj of college football.

I don’t make the rules. I’m just telling you what the rules are.

You’re whistling past the football graveyard, Dave. The Badgers are cursed — doomed beyond all hope of redemption — and you’re to blame.




 

Category: Football
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