Late Night With In The Mailbox: 09.11.18

A woman in St. Petersburg, Fla., reportedly told authorities she took her clothes off and ran through a park naked in an attempt to get away from a “giant spider.”
The woman, identified as 40-year-old Danielle Delores Teeples, also admitted to police she had taken drugs, such as crystal meth and crack cocaine, prior to taking off her clothes, WFLA-News reported.
Witnesses who observed Teeples on Sunday told police the woman was “acting erratically,” rubbing her hands through her hair and on parts of her body while running through the park.
Teeples, who allegedly refused to put her clothes back on initially, was later arrested and charged with indecent exposure, the station reported.

Was the giant spider real, or just a figment of her drug-addled imagination? Probably the latter, although for all we know, Florida could be suffering an invasion of giant spiders, the same way the Everglades are now crawling with Burmese pythons. It’s a crazy place, Florida, and the residents often resort to illegal narcotics in an effort to cope with the craziness that surrounds them everywhere. However, the drugs only make the problem worse. What you need to cope with craziness is some kind of depressant — Xanax, maybe, or Oxycodone — whereas methamphetamine and crack cocaine are stimulants, and you don’t want to be jacked up on that stuff while trying to cope with Florida-level craziness. This is an amateur mistake, and Florida Woman is lucky she got away with nothing more than an indecent exposure charge.

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain on Twitter.)

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers, and thanks to Ed Driscoll for this brilliant Gonzo lead-in: “We were somewhere around St. Petersburg, on the edge of Bartlett Park, when the drugs began to take hold.” If there is anything in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, it’s a blogger reminding you of the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!

Category: Crime, Florida

American History 101: No, Emma Lazarus Did Not Write the U.S. Constitution

Posted on | September 10, 2018 | 1 Comment

How many times have you heard the “nation of immigrants” line deployed by the advocates of amnesty and open borders? How often have you seen liberals (including some Republicans) invoke the Statue of Liberty, and the famous words about the “wretched refuse,” as somehow mandating a policy of unrestricted immigration? This involves a synthetic mythology that I’ve refuted at length previously (see “About Those ‘Huddled Masses’,” April 14, 2016), and which I don’t wish to rehash here, except to reiterate something so obvious it should not be necessary to say: The poetry of Emma Lazarus does not have the force of law.

Vox Day quotes a comment by a reader of Steve Sailer’s blog:

298 years after the first English colony, Roanoke Island, was established in the current US…
276 years after the first permanent English settlement in the current US… [i.e., Jamestown, Virginia, 1607 — RSM]
107 years after the Declaration of Independence was written… [1776]
100 years after we won our independence from the United Kingdom…
95 years after the US Constitution was ratified… [1788]
88 years after the Naturalization Act of 1795 (‘naturalization is reserved for free white persons) was passed…
3 years after the 1880 Census found the US to have a population of over 50 million…
And 1 year after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act (passed in the House by a margin of 5.5 to 1, and US law for 61 years)…
…Emma Lazarus comes along to tell us what the United States is *really* about. Thank God we had her instead of 298 years of law and history to draw from.

Is this point clear enough? While I don’t think any of my ancestors were FFVs (First Families of Virginia, i.e., among the original settlers of Jamestown), all of my ancestors were here when America declared its independence in 1776, and were among the “We the People” in whose name the Constitution was “ordained,” with the express purpose of securing “the blessings of liberty” to “ourselves and our posterity.”

There was no American nation prior to 1776. Until then, my ancestors had been subjects of the British crown, residing in a colonial territory. Attaining nationhood required these English colonists to fight a long war against the mightiest military power in the world, and it was not until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783 that the United States of America finally had the lawful status of a sovereign nation.

That the ancestors of those earliest American citizens had come to this country from Europe as pioneer settlers, establishing a civilization in what had been a wilderness populated only by scattered tribes of savages scarcely past the Neolithic stage of development, is a fact of history. “We the People,” in ordaining a permanent form of common government between the several states, anticipated the arrival of new immigrants to our nation, empowering Congress to develop laws for the naturalization of citizens. But we were not “a nation of immigrants,” because America was not a nation until we had won our independence.

Does this need further clarification? There would not have been a nation for anyone to immigrate to, had it not been for (a) the colonial settlers, who labored more than 150 years to turn the wilderness into farms, towns and cities; and (b) the patriot army that fought the British empire to a standstill, thus making the Declaration of Independence more than just a bit of clever prose on parchment. Had it not been for (a), some other European power might have made North America its colonial possession, and had it not been for (b), we’d still be subject to Her Majesty’s royal prerogative. Leaving aside hypothetical alternatives to return to historical fact: Having obtained our status as a sovereign nation, “We the People” had the right (which we have never abjured) to establish laws regulating immigration to our nation. Various changes in our immigration policy over the past 200-plus years might be criticized in retrospect, but what is causing controversy in the here and now, in 2018, is whether our existing laws should be enforced.

There are exactly two sides in this controversy:

“We the People”;
versus
Advocates of an anti-American policy who claim that somehow we have forfeited our sovereignty, and no longer have the right, as a nation, to make and enforce our own laws regarding immigration.

It is the anti-American side which, by a deceptive trick of rhetorical prestidigitation — with Emma Lazarus’s poem as their “abracadabra!” — seek to transform the Statue of Liberty from a patriotic symbol into a weapon for the subversion of our national sovereignty.

This deceptive mythology is an insult to “We the People,” an attempt to defraud us of a legacy our ancestors earned for us by their labor, and by their blood shed for our benefit. Furthermore, by hijacking the poetry of Emma Lazarus for this purpose, these subversives have unjustly (and I would hope, unwittingly) incited anti-Semitism.

Oh, yes — I know what’s up with this (((Emma Lazarus))) thing, and I don’t like it one bit. Patriotic Jews ought to be concerned for their reputation, and perhaps also for their future safety, if the American people begin to heed the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists who exploit the unfortunate appearance that the JJOOOZZZ are determined to turn America into a corrupt Third World socialist hellhole.

Hello, George Soros?

How long can the American people ignore the elephant in the room? God knows, I hate even to raise this topic, but the longer intelligent, reasonable and articulate conservatives keep biting our tongues, the more opportunity there will be for Jew-haters to keep whispering about such things, to foment suspicion, until perhaps it will no longer be possible to hold back the surging floodwaters of deranged hatred.

No one can accuse me of being an anti-Semite — indeed, I’m quite the opposite — but my efforts to suppress the conspiracy theorists will be futile unless conservative and patriotic American Jews take alarm, speak out, and make it clear that they are on the side of “We the People.”

Merely wishing the problem would go away — the idiotic bipartisan pipedream of “comprehensive reform” — is not just wasted time, it’s actually hastening the oncoming Culture War crisis. It is abundantly clear, and has been since long before Trump’s stunning 2016 victory, that a majority of Americans are sick and tired of this ceaseless influx of illegal aliens. They want the laws enforced and, insofar as legislative “reform” is contemplated, they want less immigration, not more.

To label opponents of amnesty as “racists,” haphazardly throwing around accusations of ignorance and xenophobia every time someone dares to speak on behalf of enforcing our immigration laws, is to fiddle while Rome burns. It’s irresponsible, and if this open-borders propaganda campaign “succeeds” (i.e., obstructing the immigration enforcement Americans want), the ultimate consequences could be frightening.

Like I keep saying, people need to wake the hell up.

Category: History, Immigration

Fame Whore Update: Relationship Expert Fails and Good-Bye, ‘Reasonable’ Man

Posted on | September 9, 2018 | 3 Comments

Julia Baugher, ‘Internet Famous’ on the cover of Wired magazine, 2008.

Friday and Saturday, I worked for hours to research and write my report on “fame whore” Julia Baugher (a/k/a Julia Allison), who was once featured on national magazine covers, who appeared as a frequent guest on Fox News, who had her own Bravo reality-TV series in 2012, who has written for Cosmo, Elle, Huffington Post and other publications.

This Georgetown University alumna, who 10 years ago was the illustrious example of becoming “Internet Famous,” has left more burning bridges behind her than Sherman marching through Georgia. And while my Saturday report hit most of the highlights (and lowlights) of her biography, even 3,000 words did not suffice to encompass every noteworthy debacle in the descending spiral of this erstwhile celebrity who has outlived her 15 minutes of fame. Where to begin with collecting the remaining debris from this shipwrecked life? Well, in February 2014, Miss Baugher spoke on a journalism school panel at the University of Pennsylvania entitled “Feminism/s Presents: Sex in Journalism,” and her biographical blurb in the event program read thus:

Julia Allison, 32, is a nationally recognized journalist, relationship expert, public speaker, former BRAVO star and 2008 WIRED cover girl. She is currently at work writing her first book, Experiments in Happiness, to published Spring 2015 by St. Martin’s Press. A veteran tv commentator and host, Allison has made hundreds of appearances on CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, E!, MSNBC, VH1 and MTV, and has published several hundred articles for publications as diverse as ELLE, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, New York magazine and The New York Post, covering everything from Burning Man to Comic Con to NY Fashion Week to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, as well as interviewing unconventional experts in the realm of happiness and relationships, and examining the impact of technology and social media on culture. She has spoken at conferences around the world as well as universities like MIT, Wharton, Harvard on new media, personal branding, unconventional purpose driven marketing, and hacking happiness. Allison got her start as the (sometimes controversial) dating columnist for Georgetown University when she was an undergraduate. A recovering social media addict with over 300k combined Facebook and Twitter followers, she’s lived in New York, LA, DC and Chicago. Now she lives, loves, and experiments with happiness (and a lot of yoga) in San Francisco.

Among the many items on this list, “former BRAVO star” might catch your attention. Her reality-TV series flamed out like the Hindenburg at Lakehurst after eight episodes. The premise was this: Three “relationship experts” (Miss Baugher, a freelance columnist; Emily Morse, host of a San Francisco radio show called “Sex With Emily”; and New York “executive matchmaker” Amy Laurent) would be shown doing their professional work, and also in their private lives because (ironic twist) all of them were past 30 and didn’t have relationships of their own. No husbands, no steady boyfriends — they were personally failing in the precise area of life at which they were selling themselves as “experts”!

Not surprisingly, like everything else in Julia Baugher’s life, the Bravo series Miss Advised ended in disappointment and failure, although she claimed to have gained valuable insights from her experience:

Julia Allison has (finally) experienced a much-needed breakthrough when it comes to love and finding Mr. Right.
“I was completely delusional,” the Miss Advised star admits to TV Guide about her search for a husband. “I thought the problem was I couldn’t find the right guy but … I had created an idea of what marriage should be based on my parents involving the suburbs, monogamy and daily routines I’m not interested in. I was setting up a situation where I’d fail.”
But that’s not the case today. “I realized I can make my own rules and I don’t have to have the relationship my parents had,” explains the Illinois native, who also learned another valuable love lesson recently — turn it down a notch.
“The skillset I have learned to utilize in my career — which is aggressive, masculine, focused, directed — that is not the energy you want to bring on a date,” says the expert on personal branding. “I was interrogating these guys and I always thought that was very charming and it was not charming to watch! There was no romantic energy. I’m starting to believe the things that make you good in a career make you bad in a relationship.”
Add one more newfound belief to the pile. “I’m starting to believe people who have chronic problems need to have a camera crew follow them. It was massively effective.”

Did she solve her “chronic problems”? Did the discovery that she could “make my own rules” lead her to happiness without all those “delusional” routines of suburban monogamy? Well, she’s an expert on happiness, too. Remember her book, Experiments in Happiness, which she said would be published by St. Martin’s Press in 2015? That didn’t happen.

Experiments in Happiness
How I Learned to Live a Life Filled With Love,
Creativity, Meaning…and a Little Bit of Magic
When Julia Allison — acclaimed journalist, relationship expert, and lady-about-town — set out to discover what was holding her back from happiness, she didn’t just pick up a self-help book: she wanted to write her own. Chronicling her unconventional experiments as a “guinea pig of happiness,” Allison takes readers through her journey with her characteristic charm, humor, and warmth. For anyone feeling unsettled in their hectic urban life, and for devotees of Allison’s trademark style, Experiments in Happiness is a road worth travelling on.

This “road worth travelling on” proved to be a road to nowhere.

Miss Baugher scored her book deal in September 2013, based on an 81-page proposal that included a lot of revelations about herself. Did you know that she used to have a big nose, and had not one, but two nose jobs, the first at age 19? Did you know (well, anyone could easily guess) that she “felt like an outcast, an unpopular misfit” in high school, was bulimic and, during her peak of fame circa 2007, she would “cry myself to sleep, then wake up the next day, aching with emptiness”?

Ah, but her proposal promised the cure for unhappiness, via numerous “experiments,” and it also promised interviews with all kinds of people, from Mark Zuckerberg to Tina Fey to the “Duck Dynasty” family. Her marketing proposal involved selling herself as the Happiness Expert™ with lots of media tie-ins, perhaps including a movie based on the book. Her proposal included “20 reasons this book will be a runaway bestseller” that promised a blog (“URLs . . . already registered”) aimed at “creating a worldwide following of people who are excited to evangelize and take action.” The term for this is: Bipolar, manic phase.

It never happened. Her boyfriend dumped her, she fell into a depression, turned in a manuscript that did not deliver what she’d promised in her original manic-phase proposal and, when re-writes couldn’t fix it, the publisher finally demanded she return the advance money.

The story of that debacle is highlighted by Melayna Lokosky who calls Julia Baugher “the poster child for The Sociopathic Business Model.” Ms. Lovosky is a corporate whistleblower-turned-consultant who specializes in protecting against a type of fraud where would-be entrepreneurs use exaggerated promises to attract venture capital. “Fraud fears facts,” as Ms. Lokosky says, and one way scammers seek to suppress the “negative truth” about themselves is to denigrate as “haters” any truth-teller who tries to hold them accountable. This resembles the tactics of DARVO (Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender) in which wrongdoers play the victim by maligning the motives of their accusers.

In the case of Julia Baugher, the people she calls “haters” are the operators and commenters at a blog called RebloggingDonk which has chronicled and mocked everything she’s done for years. All her failures and excuses, every attempt to “re-invent” herself — RebloggingDonk is the dossier, the archival source on Miss Baugher’s spectacular descent from Manhattan socialite to . . . well, what is she anymore?

For two years, she was a fixture on the hippie festival circuit, following around her DJ boyfriend “Rain Phutureprimitive” (a/k/a Chad McNally) but that ended last year when he decided he was into “polyamory” (a/k/a, screwing around, threesomes, orgies, etc.). In June, in a column for the New York Post, Miss Baugher said she had recently “started seeing someone I never would have dated 10 years earlier,” a guy she called “a very reasonable choice.” Guess how that turned out? Read more

Category: Celebrities, Sex Trouble

Rule 5 Sunday: Happy Birthday, Kelsey Chow!

Posted on | September 9, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I seem to recall that EBL did an extensive post on Kelly Asbille Chow a while back in connection with Yellowstone and Wind River, but since I am fresh out of inspiration this weekend and it’s her birthday, here she is to help kick off another week of Rule 5 linkagery. Is it just me, or is she one of those women who look pretty ordinary most of the time, but in the right pose and setting looks gorgeous?

From her “Teen Wolf” days.

First out of the gate this week (as he is every week) is Ninety Miles From Tyranny with Hot Pick Of The Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #370, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. Animal Magnetism has Rule Five Airline Prices Friday, as well as the Saturday Gingermageddon.

Speaking of EBL, she’s got Alyssa Milano Tears, Zina Bash, Gabriella Quevedo, National Cheese Pizza Day, Julia Salazar, Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Friday Fishing, and sadder-but-maybe-no-wiser former fame whore Julia Baugher.

A View From The Beach has a small but elite group of posts: Going Dutch with Robin Holzken, Friday Morning in the Islands, This Girl Can Really Handle Balls, “Stardust”, Take Me to Your Leader, Light Wallets Prefer Heavy Chests, Well, He Won’t Be Able to Say He Wasn’t Warned and Ariana Grande a Big Hit at Aretha’s Funeral.

American Power returns after a long absence with Rose McGowan, Kara Del Toro, Josephine Skriver, Hot Girls Smoking Weed, Alexis Ren’s Life Update, Alexis Ren Feeling Like A Diva, Josie Canseco, Kelly Brook, and Angie Harmon.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Sarah Wright, his Vintage Babe is Mary Frann, and Sex in Advertising is covered by Calvin Klein. At Dustbury, it’s Nicola Sturgeon and Marguerite Chapman.

Thanks to everyone for the luscious linkagery!

Visit Amazon’s Intimate Apparel Shop
Amazon Fashion – Jewelry For Women

Category: Rule 5

Who’s Crazy on Campus?

Posted on | September 9, 2018 | Comments Off on Who’s Crazy on Campus?

A new study finds that 1-in-4 college students is mentally ill:

The newly-published report out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital shows that a quarter of college students received were diagnosed with a mental health condition in the past year, and a fifth have had suicidal thoughts. . . .
The results showed alarming rates of mental health issues and a significant risk for suicidal thoughts among all students, though minorities, whether racial, sexual, or gender, were especially prone. . . .
In fact, one in four students was diagnosed with a condition, while one in five considered taking his or her own life. Nearly 10 percent admitted to attempting suicide, and nearly 20 percent had committed self-harm of some form. . . .
While sexual minorities were found to have high rates of mental health diagnoses along with reports of self-harm and suicidal thoughts or actions, transgender participants showed high rates over all outcomes. Two-thirds of transgender students admitted to self-harm, while more than a third having attempted suicide. Similarly, more than half of bisexual students admitted to self-harm or suicidal behavior, while more than a quarter attempted suicide.
Asian students showed a greater risk of suicidal behavior, yet lower rates of mental health diagnoses compared to white students. Black students reported lower rates across all outcomes versus white students.

From the summary of the researchers’ findings:

Bisexual students were more likely to report MH [mental health] diagnoses and suicidality, compared to heterosexual and gay/lesbian students . . . Transgender students reported a higher rate of MH diagnoses and suicidality relative to females.

It is interesting that it is not gay men or lesbians who show the higher risk, but rather bisexual and transgender students, and that Asians are more at risk of suicide than whites, while blacks are generally less likely to report any mental health problems.

Category: Education