The Other McCain

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

(Insert Hillbilly Joke Here)

Posted on | January 17, 2024 | Comments Off on (Insert Hillbilly Joke Here)

Time to tune up your banjos, IYKWIMAITYD:

A Kentucky lawmaker introduced a bill Tuesday to decriminalize sex between first cousins.
Republican Kentucky state Rep. Nick Wilson sponsored House Bill 269 to redefine sex with a first cousin so it would no longer qualify as an act of incest, according to the Kentucky State Assembly’s website.
The bill removes “first cousin from the list of familial relationships” defined as unlawful incest in Kentucky, the website explained. Incest would also be downgraded from a Class C felony to a Class D “unless it is committed with a person who is less than twelve years of age.”
Kentucky law currently states that a person is guilty of incest if they have sex with any person known to be “his or her parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, great-grandparent, great-grandchild, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, brother, sister, first cousin, ancestor, or descendent,” according to Newsweek.
Wilson’s bill has been widely criticized on social media.

Kentucky blogger Dana Pico could not be reached for comment.



 

Category: Kentucky

In The Mailbox: 01.17.24 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | January 17, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.17.24 (Morning Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Apple’s Hardware Backdoor Into The iPhone, also, How Old Do You Have To Be To Defend Yourself?
EBL: MAGA Iowa, also, Prohibition Blues
Twitchy: President Biden Called A Lid At 10 AM – Here’s What He’s Been Up To, Maybe Stop Robbing The Stores – Walgreens Closes Fourth Store In Boston, and Palestinian Explains Why Cancer Hospital Was Fair Target For Hamasshole Demonstrators
Louder With Crowder: “We’re gonna come together”: Trump praises DeSantis, Haley in call for unity after dominant Iowa Caucus win
Vox Popoli: Demolition in Dallas, Awards are Gay and Literally Fake, The Dying Colossus, Neoclowns Seek Round 3, and The Decline is Observable
Upstream Reviews: Hollywood Conservatism – A Blast From The Past With Modern Day Ripples, 
Gab News: AI As The Information War Superweapon

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Trump Dominates in Iowa: What We Learned 
American Greatness: Gates Foundation Announces Intentions for Record-Breaking Donations in 2024, also, MSNBC Refuses to Air Trump’s Victory Speech; CNN Cuts Away When Trump Mentions the Border Crisis
American Thinker: DEI, Airplane Crashes, and Bad Medicine, also, The Ukraine War Needed to End Yesterday
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Replacing Biden News
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship inaugurates new luxury hotel as food and fuel shortages worsen, The Havana Cartel: The Cuban dictatorship’s 60-year history of drug trafficking, and U.S. State Dept. issues travel warning about crime in Cuba
Behind The Black: SpaceX’s Starlink: More satellites in orbit but fewer close encounters, also, Indian satellite startup opens new satellite factory
Cafe Hayek: International Mobility of Capital Doesn’t Weaken the Case for Free Trade
CDR Salamander: First U.S. Deaths In The 2024 Anti-Piracy Campaign
Da Tech Guy: Medjugorje and Main Street What Do You Believe? Crusading for cursive writing, and Five After Iowa Caucus Thoughts Under the Fedora
Don Surber: Iowa Had No Choice But Trump
First Street Journal: I told you so!
Gates Of Vienna: Jew-Hater Thwarted in Belgium
The Geller Report: PURE EVIL: Pro-Hamas Protesters March Against NYC Cancer Hospital, Scream “Shame on You!” at Patients and Staff at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Pediatric Hospital
Hollywood In Toto: Bari Weiss Shames MeToo Celebrities for Silence on Hamas, also, Tyler Fischer Feasts on Smart Comedy Crowds
The Lid: It’s Time For Ron Desantis To Bow Out
Legal Insurrection: Cornell Under Increased Scrutiny Because of Anti-Israel Summer Program, German Finance Minister Tells Protesting Farmers He Can’t Make Promises About Budget, and Western Illinois U. National Day of Racial Healing Includes ‘Racism for White People’ Lecture
Nebraska Energy Observer: That Reckoning
Outkick: Cowboys And Eagles Fans Are Miserable Today And It’s Great, Jason Kelce Cries On Sidelines As Retirement Looms Following Eagles’ Early Playoff Exit, Ray Lewis Left Appalled By Eagles’ Porous Defense, and Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer Goes Off On Team And Wants Them All Gone
Shark Tank: FL Democrats Oppose Bill Regulating AI Use In Political Ads
Shot In The Dark: In A Perfect World,  Maybe He Should Stick With Food Pr0n Selfies, and Too Easy? 
This Ain’t Hell: Written Monday, Trump leads Iowa. Warning: Rant, A 71-year-old commits robbery, despite previously serving 40+ years in jail for robbery, American Air Force team allegedly assisted Israel with targets, and SEALs Missing
Victory Girls: Iran’s IRGC Attacks Iraq and Syria, Houthis Attack Cargo Ship
Volokh Conspiracy: Amicus Brief Related to the Mackey “Vote-by-Text” Meme Prosecution
Watts Up With That: Updates On the March to The Great Green Energy Future
The Federalist: Nikki Haley Flounders In Iowa Despite Democrats’ Best Efforts To Meddle On Her Behalf, Iowa Caucuses Leave No Doubt About Who The Winners And Losers Are, Lawsuit Uncovers How Raffensperger Tried To Memory-Hole The Election Law Trump’s Georgia Call Was About, Democrats Are Catching On That Political Violence Can Go Both Ways, and Ron DeSantis Failed Spectacularly In Iowa, But It Didn’t Have To Be This Way
Mark Steyn: And So It Begins

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Category: Linkagery

Trump (Predictably) Wins Big in Iowa; MSNBC (Predictably) Melts Down on Air

Posted on | January 16, 2024 | Comments Off on Trump (Predictably) Wins Big in Iowa; MSNBC (Predictably) Melts Down on Air

It has never been my style to say or do anything merely to “own the libs,” as the kids say, but if owning the libs is what you want to do, then voting for Trump is certainly the best way to do it. Congratulations, then, to Iowa GOP caucus-goers, who provoked unprecedented conniptions in the liberal media. MSNBC actually refused to broadcast Trump’s victory speech in Iowa, and CNN cut away from the speech as soon as Trump started talking about the “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border.

This kind of reaction says more about the media than it says about Trump. The journalistic establishment is so deep into Trump Derangement Syndrome that they are now actively involved in censorship. And on MSBNC, Rachel Maddow made it clear that what they hate and fear — the enemy they wish to destroy — is not merely Trump, but the millions of people who have voted for Trump:

The big picture take away from that — and I don’t mean to be, again, too dark, as you said, on this. But, it is not — if we are worried about the rise of authoritarianism in this country, we are worried about the potential rise of fascism in this country, worried about our democracy falling to an authoritarian and potentially fascist form of government, the leader who is trying to do that is part of that equation. But people wanting that is a much bigger part of that equation.
And the American electorate is made up of two major parties. One of those parties has been flirting with extremism on the ultra-right for a very long time. They’ve brought them in in a way that they haven’t been central to Republican electoral politics ever before.
Once you have radicalized one major party so that those are the preferences of the people who adhere to your party, the leader’s interchangeable. And yes, Trumpism is sometimes what we call it, the MAGA movement is probably a better way to do it. But there isn’t an authoritarian movement inside Republican politics that isn’t being bamboozled by Trump. They are pushing Trump to get more and more extreme because the more extreme things he says, the more they adhere. And that is coming from a very large proportion of the American right that appears to the Republican Party. That’s why this is a Republican Party problem more than it is the problem of one man.

Does she even hear what she’s saying? Or is she unaware of the meaning of her own words? Perhaps she is confused, but we should not be. What Rachel Maddow was saying Monday night is that if you don’t vote the way she wants you to vote — if you vote Republican, if you oppose the policies she supports — then you are a fascist, an “ultra-right” extremist. There can be no legitimate opposition to Democrats, she is saying.

We must once against congratulate the Iowa voters — all 58,000 of you “ultra-right” people who voted for Trump in the caucuses — and also thank them for inspiring Maddow to say so plainly what we have known for many years: Democrats don’t really believe in democracy, if democracy means Democrats might lose an election.



 

Category: Election, Iowa, MSNBC

In The Mailbox: 01.15.24

Posted on | January 16, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.15.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

A reminder to Redditors

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Bring back the death penalty for child rape, Baldwin Buckley Debate at Cambridge 1965, and Joyce Randolph, RIP
Twitchy: Pathetic Keith Olberman Gets Owned On The Internet Again, Taylor Lorenz Claims Gaza Is Being Slammed By COVID Strains “Cooked Up In The USA”, and Here’s Egypt’s Border Fence Against Gaza
Louder With Crowder: Joe Biden makes it weird creepin’ on a young lady at a coffee shop as he’s asked about embattled cabinet member
Vox Popoli: You Get What You Gave, Run Gavin Run, I’m the Real Victim Here, There is No Catching Up, and Remigration in Germany
Upstream Reviews: My Brother’s Keeper by Tim Powers, Rob Kroese Wants You To Read Based Books,
Postcards From Barsoom: A Partial Explanation Of Zoomer Girl Derangement
Stoic Observations: The Harvard Edition

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Beyond Chastity
American Conservative: Claudine Gay: Critical Plagiarism Theory, also, Chris Brunet: Who Is the Man Behind Gay’s Ouster at Harvard?
American Greatness: Lawfare Against Trump Is Running Out of Gas, Race-Baiting Biden Renews His Favorite Playbook In 2024, and FAA Pushes to Hire People with ‘Severe Intellectual, Psychiatric’ Disabilities in the Name of Diversity
American Thinker: Past Time to Undo Obama’s ‘Fundamental Transformation’, Can America Survive This Perversion of Our Justice System? and We Are in an Abusive Relationship with Our Government
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: While Cubans go hungry, the Castro dictatorship’s ‘first lady’ continues her annual culinary festival, In Cuba, electricity theft and blackouts go hand in hand, and Nicaraguan dictatorship forcibly expels jailed Catholic bishops and priests from the country
BattleSwarm: Busting F-35 Myths, What Changed Jordan Petersen’s Mind, and Snowpocalypse Not: 2024 Edition
Behind The Black: Momentus delays next orbital tug mission due to lack of funds, Elon Musk’s employee update released January 12th, SpaceX launches again, this time from Cape Canaveral, The divide in a giant Martian lava river, and Can the shift in black vote to Trump overcome the Democratic Party’s vote tampering?
Cafe Hayek: Once Again, the Case For Free Trade Isn’t One That Sacrifices the National Interest
CDR Salamander: The Philippines & The PRC At Center Stage – On Midrats, also, The Royal Navy’s Familiar Problem
Chicago Boyz: The Social and Economic Influence of AI and Robotics, Nautical Book Review: To the Last Salute, by Georg von Trapp (rerun), and Incoming
Da Tech Guy: What Are You Going to Believe What we Say or What We Do? First aid vs fighting back, The Biden/Trudeau Administrations Accidently Producing The Best Argument Against the Death Penalty I’ve Seen, and Damning OIG report leads to an obvious conclusion: Chicago Public Schools system has too much money
Dana Loesch: Nikki Haley Dodges Question Trump Fumbled
Don Surber: Republicans Sell Out America
Gates Of Vienna: China, the Clown State, Violent Culture-Enrichers Stop Koran-Burning in Arnhem, Teaching the Little Whore a Lesson in the Name of the Koran, Brave New Pedagogy in Schleswig-Holstein, and Islamic Pedagogy in North Rhine-Westphalia
The Geller Report: Taiwan Defies China, Elects Pro-Self-Governing President William Lai in Historic Election, Massive Pro-Terrorist Rally in DC Was a Real Insurrection, Communist China Party Member Now Second-Largest Foreign Owner of US Land, Land Buys Missing from Government Records, and Prominent Muslim Writer: “We Must Normalize Massacres”
Hollywood In Toto: Why Give My Regards to Broad Street Got a Bad Rap, Greg Lukianoff: How Diversity Can Save Free Speech (Really), Disney’s Soul Stumbles in Ill-Fated Re-Release, and Anti-Racism Short Casts Ben Shapiro Clone as White Supremacist
The Lid: Australia is DeNazifying. Why Can’t Gaza?
Legal Insurrection: Philosopher Claims ‘Fatphobia’ is a Form of Oppression, Iran Attacks Locations in Syria and Iraq, Killing Four Civilians, China Complains that the U.S. has ‘Weaponized’ Chip Export Controls, Wisconsin Shows Republicans How to Fight DEI Policies in Higher Education, Executives Say They’re Still Committed to DEI Policies Despite Rising Backlash, and After Incentives End, California Rooftop Solar Power Installations Drop 85%
Nebraska Energy Observer: Saturday – just for…us, Second Sunday After the Epiphany, and Iowa, mostly
Outkick: Arizona Head Coach Jedd Fisch Heading To Washington, A 5-Year Dolphins Rebuild That Was Supposed To Deliver Championships Hasn’t Brought A Playoff Win, Alabama’s DeVonta Smith Calls Players Who Transfer Out ‘Idiots’, Chad Ochocinco Says Jerry Jones Is ‘The Mother F***ing Problem’, Deion Sanders Welcomes Gage Goldberg, Son Of WWE Icon Bill Goldberg, To Colorado, Riley Gaines Temporarily Denied Entry To NCAA Convention While President Charlie Baker Continues To Hide, and Some G-list Comedian Has An Issue With Taylor Swift
Power Line: Crazyfornia Gets Crazier, Baby, It’s Cold Outside, and Diversity Is Going to Get Us Killed
Shark Tank: Burgum Endorses Trump
Shot In The Dark: It’s MLK Day, also, Guilt By Tangential Association
The Political Hat: Happy National Hat Day!
This Ain’t Hell: Only today, The US and UK strike Houthi targets in Yemen, Are you willing to host an illegal alien family to ease your state’s resources? TX DoD Civilian theft, Jellyfish looking aerial object floating over military base in Iraq, A student is told that ‘straight’ is ‘offensive’, and FAA Hires the Best and Brightest
Transterrestrial Musings: Austin Must Go
Victory Girls: Nikki Haley And The Swamp
Volokh Conspiracy: New York’s Civil Lawsuit Against Trump Is Unconstitutional
Watts Up With That: A Federal Power Grid Would be Everyone’s Worst Nightmare, Why the U.S. Senate Must Reject Joe Goffman for the EPA, John Kerry Resigning as Climate Envoy to Help the Biden Election Campaign, Charging an Electric Vehicle in Canada’s Deep Freeze, and How did Alberta wind up facing blackouts in the extreme cold?
The Federalist: Democrats Talk About Illegal Immigrants The Same Way They Used To Talk About Slaves, Meta Backtracks And Blames System ‘Bug’ After Nuking AFPI Instagram Over ‘Fraud’, Dishonest Ballot Initiative Wording Is Another Way Democrats Rig Elections, ERCOT Admits Wind, Solar Power Alone Can’t Keep Texans Warm During Record-Breaking Arctic Blast, and Mark Meadows Enlisting Legal Legend Paul Clement In Fulton County Defense Indicates Case Could Head To SCOTUS
Mark Steyn: Everything Must Change: Burt Lancaster in The Leopard, The Glory of Love, and One Day to Trial

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Category: Linkagery

Rule 5 Monday: Happy Lee-Jackson Day!

Posted on | January 15, 2024 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Monday: Happy Lee-Jackson Day!

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Get yourself a girl who’s proud of her ancestors.

Yesterday was eaten by snakes.
Today is a Federal holiday in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but in Virginia it also used to be Jackson-Lee Day, commemorating Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee, sons of Virginia who did great deeds in the Mexican War and the Civil War. Unfortunately, we aren’t allowed to remember great men if they fought for the Confederacy any more, and so the holiday was first merged with MLK Day in 1983 and then abolished in 2000 under Republican(!) governor Jim Gilmore.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Biden 2024 Friday, and the Saturday Brunettenarok.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Shetland, Straws Are Sexy, Batman, Muzzel, MAGA Fat Fani, Lady Godiva, Golda, Cantonese Scrambled Eggs, The Creator, Ghosted, It Comes At Night, and Cindy Morgan RIP

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Montse Roura, Fish Pic Friday – No Limits Nina, Tattoo Thursday, More Good News On Oysters, Vikings Into Dental Health, Ray Epps Gets One Year, The Wednesday Wetness, Virginia Has Bumper Crop of Oysters, The Latest Water Bottle Threat – Nanoplastics!, Tuesday Tanlines, Feds Fail to Fund Maryland Catfish, The Monday Morning Stimulus and Palm Sunday

FLAPPR: T.I.T.S. for January 12

AVERAGE BUBBA: Rule 5 Friday – Blonde Babe Edition

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Whip it good!

Posted on | January 14, 2024 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Whip it good!

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The greatest DEVO song ever recorded
Finally picked up Volume 13 of Klaus Schulze’s La Vie Electronique, but things have been busy enough this week with the beginning of tax season that I haven’t had a chance to rip it to Winamp and enjoy the tunes. Maybe next week after I get back from Pahrump and Las Vegas.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

The return of Overlord Manatee!

Rule 5 Sunday: Coffee, please
Animal Magnetism
Average Bubba
Flappr
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL





FMJRA 2.0: I GOT NO FRIENDS ‘CAUSE THEY READ THE PAPERS
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.09.24 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.09.24 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Crazy People Are Dangerous
The Daley Gator
Flappr
357 Magnum
EBL

Big Trouble for Fulton County D.A.
Flappr
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.10.24
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Priorities: Plastic Straws or Fentanyl?
The Daley Gator
The Pirate’s Cove
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.11.24
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.12.24
357 Magnum
EBL
A View From The Beach

Top linkers for the week ending January 12:

  1. (tied) 357 Magnum & EBL (10)
  2.  A View From The Beach (8)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

The End of Two Football Dynasties

Posted on | January 13, 2024 | Comments Off on The End of Two Football Dynasties

In the span of 24 hours this week, we learned that Nick Saban would retire as head football coach at the University of Alabama, and that Bill Belichick would “part ways” with the New England Patriots. Can we take just a moment — before discussing anything else about this news — to extend our condolences to Cleveland Browns fans?

Understand that Cleveland has been a persistent loser in the NFL over the past 35 years. Not only have the Browns never won a Super Bowl, but they haven’t even won a division title since 1989. Three years ago, Cleveland fans were thrilled when the Browns actually won a wild card playoff game against Pittsburgh, and this season, they’re hoping that elderly quarterback Joe Flacco — who began the season sitting on his sofa as a free agent — might be able to break their Super Bowl jinx.

Perhaps it’s an exaggeration to say Browns fans are actually “hoping” for anything, though; football fans in Cleveland have pretty much accepted that they’re doomed. Nothing illustrates Cleveland’s ill fate better than the story of Bill Belichick and Nick Saban. After Belichick had spent 12 years as an assistant to Bill Parcells with the New York Giants, winning two Super Bowls, Cleveland hired Belichick as their head coach in 1991. Belichick hired Saban as his defensive coordinator, and you might think — with two coaches who would later be hailed the greatest in football history — that this would betide championships for the Browns.

Alas, there is no escaping the Cleveland Curse. During the four years of the Belichick-Saban era in Cleveland, the Browns won 36 games and lost 44. Their best season under Belichick, in 1994, Cleveland posted an 11-5 record, just one game behind the AFC Central champion Pittsburgh Steelers, and won a wild card playoff against the Patriots before being eliminated in the next round by the Steelers. After the 1995 season, the corrupt owner Art Modell fired Bill Belichick, and moved his team to Baltimore, where they became the Ravens. Cleveland had to wait four years before they got a new Browns franchise under NFL expansion.

That connection between the Cleveland Browns and the two greatest football coaches of all time gives an ironic mirth to the double-whammy news that struck this week in Tuscaloosa and Boston. The media covering the Patriots had spent weeks saying that the team would get rid of Belichick after this 5-12 season, New England’s worst record in more than 30 years. But the retirement of Saban was unexpected. Alabama fans were happy that the Crimson Tide had beaten Georgia for the SEC title this year, and had returned to the college football championship playoffs, even if ’Bama did come up short against eventual champion Michigan.

Saban has always said that the biggest part of success in college football is recruiting, and his advancing age made that more difficult. At age 72, could he promise recruits that he would be there for their whole four years? And so, wanting to do what was best for Alabama, he made the decision to retire, after winning six national championships in 17 seasons at Tuscaloosa. Belichick’s exist from New England was less graceful, although both the coach and Patriots owner Robert Kraft were polite and diplomatic in their announcement of the decision to “part ways,” the reality is that, since Tom Brady left after the 2019 season, Belichick has plunged the franchise into disaster. The six Super Bowl victories during the 20-year Belichick-Brady “dynasty” era are an increasingly distant memory, and New England fans can’t live off nostalgia — they want a winning team, and they want it now. Well, good luck with that.

The Patriots elevated linebackers coach Jerrod Mayo to replace Belichick, and my forecast is that he’ll last three years before getting replaced by the next head coach, and so on and so on, for probably another 10 or 15 years or so before New England again makes it to the Super Bowl. The Patriots franchise is broken, and fixing it will not be easy, mainly because the fans in New England have become hopelessly spoiled by the 20 years when Tom Brady made it seem like winning Super Bowls was easy.

High expectations are all fine and good, but the Patriots organization had lost its mojo even before Brady left. Their draft choices in recent years have been less than ideal, shall we say? In 2022, New England’s first-round pick (#29 overall) was an offensive guard, Cole Strange, from UT-Chattanooga, and their second-round pick (#50 oerall) was wide receive Tyquan Thornton from Baylor. Strange has had his struggles and injuries, but isn’t necessarily a bad player, but was he worth a first round pick? Good luck finding any pro football analyst who thinks so. As for Thornton, in two seasons, he’s caught 35 passes for 338 yards. And then you compare this to the players that the Patriots could have chosen instead in the same draft, e.g., University of Georgia wide receiver George Pickens, who ended up going to Pittsburgh in the second round (#52 overall) where he’s racked up 115 catches for nearly 2,000 yards. When it comes to evaluating rookie talent, the Patriots aren’t just missing by a few inches, they’re missing by miles. The classic example of this is N’Keal Harry, who was drafted by the Patriots in the first round in 2019, but who accomplished next to nothing before being traded to Chicago in 2022. Harry’s NFL career stats after four years — 64 catches for 714 yards. He wasn’t even on anybody’s roster for the 2023 season.

Again, you can’t evaluate how bad it really is without considering the players that New England could have drafted in 2019 instead of N’Keal Harry, whom they picked at #32 overall. Meanwhile, in the second round, the San Francisco 49ers used their pick (#36 overall) to take wide receiver Deebo Samuel from South Carolina. In five NFL season, Samuel has 283 catches for 4,122 yards. In the 2021 season, Samuel led the league in yards-per-catch and was named to the Pro Bowl.

Considering the importance of wide receivers in today’s NFL, wouldn’t you suppose that a team like the New England Patriots, who won six Super Bowls in 20 years, might have somebody in the building capable of assessing talent at this crucial position? But apparently not, and who was responsible for this failure? A guy named Bill Belichick, that’s who. As both head coach and general manager of the Patriots, Belichick had final say-so on all personnel decisions, and some of those decisions have been so bad that none of the analysts covering the team can explain how they happened. Getting rid of Belichick might be a first step toward fixing this problem, but New England’s front office is still staffed by the people Belichick hired, and the kind of incompetence that led to the Patriots throwing away first-round draft picks on no-talent players is likely to continue as long as those staffers remain. Beginning with a 4-13 team — worst record in the AFC — a rebuilding project is necessary, but unless the Patriots suddenly develop a knack for finding good draft picks, the team isn’t likely to improve anytime soon.

Alabama’s situation is less discouraging. They hired Kalen DeBoer, who took the University of Washington Huskies to the title game, to be the next head coach, and while I don’t think the Crimson Tide is likely to experience in the near future anything like the success Saban had during his tenure, it’s unlikely that Alabama will actually become a bad team. The tradition and prestige of the program are such that talented football players will keep going to Tuscaloosa, and they should be in the Top 10 at least for most preseason polls for years to come. If things go bad, however, DeBoer will get the boot. Alabama simply won’t tolerate a loser.

Thus does the Belichick-Saban era of football come to an end, and once again, we extend our condolences to Cleveland Browns fans.



 

Category: Football

In The Mailbox: 01.12.24

Posted on | January 13, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.12.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Lovecraft knew.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Good Guys 1 Bad Guys 0
EBL: Batman, also, Jason Jones and the Catskill Police Department
Twitchy: Harvard Prof Who Insulted Harvard Extension School To Own Chris Rufo Forced To Do The Back Down, Canadian Gets Owned After Posting Map Mockingly Showing How She Sees America, and Alleged Author Joyce Carol Oates Steps In It Again With Claim The Bible Is Fiction
Louder With Crowder: Whoa: Texas seizes control of border city to stop Biden Admin from letting illegals in, now Biden’s DOJ wants SCOTUS involved
Vox Popoli: An AI Disproof of Evolution, Three Legends Depart, and Gonzalo Lira RIP
According To Hoyt: Before The Crash 1, 2, 3, 4, and That’s Not How Any of That Works
Monster Hunter Nation: O’Hare
Upstream Reviews: Shorty
Stoic Observations: The Cult of Truth

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: How Taiwan’s Election Could Upstage the Republican Primary
American Greatness: John Hopkins Chief Diversity Officer Retracts and Disavows Privilege ‘Hit List’
American Thinker: The FBI — the Dog That Turned on Its Master
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Biden 2024 Friday
Babalu Blog: Food protest in Cuba leads to confrontation with police, Castro dictatorship tightens its internal blockade on the Cuban people, and A chat about Lopez-Obrador with Allan Wall
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For January 12
Behind The Black: Boeing completes Starliner parachute drop test, Japan’s H2A rocket launches military surveillance satellite, A new plan to send a probe to interstellar object Oumuamua, A cluster of strange terrain in Martian glacier country, and Another look at the increasing regulatory burden impacting commerical space
Cafe Hayek: “How Tariffs Aren’t All They’re Trumped Up to Be”, also, A Modern Economy, As Such, Cannot Owe or Be Owed Anything
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: The Obvious Jerad Mayo Patriots Head Coach Question
Don Surber: The comic who can save America
First Street Journal: You in a heap ‘o trouble, boy!
Gates Of Vienna: Justice? Or Lawfare? also, Those High-Maintenance Migrants
The Geller Report: Netanyahu: ‘We fight terrorists, and we fight lies. Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting genocide.’, also, Elementary School Teacher Sues Hamas-CAIR
Hollywood In Toto: Disney Suffers Yet Another Cruel Blow, Greg Gutfeld: ‘Advertisers Are Now the Censors’, and Antifa Vows to Cancel Jewish Star Michael Rapaport (or Worse)
The Lid: The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.—A Proud Unapologetic Zionist
Legal Insurrection: Osage Nation Prevails in Court Battle Against European Green Energy Barons, Oil Prices Surge as Conflict in Red Sea Continues, Anti-Israel Ivy League Protesters Who Blocked NYC Roads and Bridges Vow to Do it Again, Media Beclowns Itself with Articles Linking Israel’s Military Efforts in Gaza to…Climate Crisis, and Hertz Selling 20,000 Electric Vehicles for Gas-Powered Cars
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Alabama Hires Kalen DaBoer As Next Head Coach To Replace Nick Saban In Tuscaloosa, Alabama Releases Chilling Nick Saban Tribute That’s A Punch Straight To The Emotions, Riley Gaines Delivers Binder Of Petition To NCAA Reps As President Charlie Baker Continues To Duck, Florida State’s Mike Norvell Lands Massive Contract Extension After Alabama Comes Snooping, Tua Tagovailoa Had The Same Response To Nick Saban Retiring As The Entire Alabama Fanbase: Freaking Out, and Model Who Underwent Multiple Surgeries To Obtain The Biggest Boobs In The US Has Decided To Go Natural
Power Line: Jewish Students Sue Harvard; MIT Up Next, Israel’s long war, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Waltz Grills Former West Point Teacher On DEI
Shot In The Dark: I Read Deena Winter In The Minnesota Reformer So You Don’t Have To, also, Pronouns – Ass/Kicked, 
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The British Crisis
This Ain’t Hell: Creativity in government, Valor Friday, Marine Veteran Ray Epps gets one year of probation for his role in the Capitol riot, Personnel Shortage Halts Coast Guard, Theft by former VFW post commander results in post needing to merge with another, and How are illegal aliens showing up at the border not looking like they had walked long distances?
Transterrestrial Musings: Back On The Air (Sort Of)
Victory Girls: Democrats Mad That Biden Ordered Strikes Against Houthi Terrorists
Volokh Conspiracy: Lawsuit Over UC Santa Cruz’s Diversity Statements Dismissed on Standing Grounds
Watts Up With That: EV Double Decker Bus Catches Fire in London Rush Hour, British PM Nuclear Push: “Nuclear is the perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain”, Germany To Rely on Coal to Avoid Blackouts, and Biden Admin Unveils ‘Natural Gas Tax’ Proposal
The Federalist: Did Fani Willis Hire Her Unqualified Lover To Prosecute Trump At Taxpayers’ Expense? Battle-Tested Trump Brings A New And Improved Ground Game To Iowa, No, Conservatives Shouldn’t Seek To Emulate Richard Nixon, House Republicans Roll Out Legislative Blueprint For States To Secure Their Elections, Elon Musk Rightly Says Arizona Doesn’t Verify Federal Voter Citizenship — But The Feds Don’t Let Them, White Men Don’t Want To Join An Army That Tells Them They Aren’t Wanted, and Texas Stages More Border Security Theater With National Guard’s Eagle Pass Seizure
Mark Steyn: Four Days to Trial

Amazon Warehouse Deals




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