The Other McCain

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

‘The Patriot Way’ Has Turned Toxic

Posted on | December 7, 2023 | Comments Off on ‘The Patriot Way’ Has Turned Toxic

Tonight, the New England Patriots play in prime time against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and bid fair to set an unwelcome NFL record:

The betting over/under total on the “Thursday Night Football” game between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers is testing a 30-year low, and weather isn’t even a factor.
The total on the Patriots-Steelers game dipped to 29.5 earlier this week at ESPN BET before settling at a consensus 30 at sportsbooks as of Thursday morning. That would be the lowest over/under since a 2006 divisional playoff game between the Carolina Panthers and Chicago Bears (30).
There hasn’t been a total under 30 since Dec. 26, 1993, when frigid temperatures contributed to three games having sub-30 totals. That Sunday featured the lowest total on a game in ESPN Stats & Information’s database: 28 on Colts at Patriots in New England, where temperatures were in the low 20s with 23 mph winds. The Patriots won that game 38-0.
Temperatures on Thursday in Pittsburgh are expected to be in the 40s with light winds.
The Steelers will start backup Mitch Trubisky at quarterback against the Patriots’ stingy defense because of Kenny Pickett being out with a high ankle sprain, while New England has scored seven points or fewer in three straight games. Bailey Zappe took over as the starting quarterback for Sunday’s 6-0 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
The Patriots-Steelers total was attracting more betting interest than usual at sportsbooks, the bulk of it on the under.

The Patriots could make the record books (not in a good way):

The New England Patriots made history in their loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 13, but for all the wrong reasons. They are now the first team in the NFL’s Super Bowl era to go winless through a three-game stretch in which they surrendered no more than 10 points in each contest, according to Boston Sports Info.
After losing 10-6 to the Indianapolis Colts and 10-7 to the New York Giants, the Patriots were shut out by the Chargers 6-0 on Sunday. No squad in the 58 years since the first Super Bowl has managed to accomplish a feat like that.
In fact, you have to go all the way back to the 1938 Chicago Cardinals — the team that later relocated to St. Louis and is now playing in Arizona — to find a similar streak of offensive ineptitude. Those Cardinals lost four games in a row in a similar manner, dropping those matchups 10-0, 7-0, 6-0, and finally 7-3.

The other day, Wombat asked why I haven’t written about football since September, and the simple answer is: Depression.

Any fan of a team as bad as this would be depressed by New England’s bleak and hopeless season, but I have special reasons to be glum, as I explained back in September:

Football is a team sport, but I became a New England Patriots fan in 2021 because of one player. When the Patriots drafted Alabama quarterback Mac Jones, they also acquired me as a fan: Roll Tide.
Jones had led the Crimson Tide to an undefeated season and the National Championship after spending three years on the bench behind Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa, stepping in after Tua suffered a season-ending injury late in 2019. . . . Mac led the Patriots to the playoffs as a rookie, finished second in Rookie of the Year voting, and seemed destined for future greatness.

To explain what went wrong — well, there is an army of sports writers in Boston trying to explain it, and their explanations don’t satisfy me. Don’t even mention the name “Bill Belichick” to my brother Kirby, who has developed an implacable hatred of the Patriots coach. Kirby’s basic analysis of what’s gone wrong in New England is simple: Belichick has become a dictator and, like other totalitarian leaders, has surrounded himself with “yes men.” Furthermore, Kirby finds fault with Belichick’s approach to roster-building, an approach that Kirby summed up in a memorable phrase: “Gucci defense, Dollar General offense.”

None of these genius sports writers in Boston know as much about football as my brother, or they’d have figured this out themselves. Before examining in detail the evidence in support of Kirby’s analysis, however, let’s first address the elephant in the room:

The New England Patriots are noted for the following characteristics under Belichick’s tenure, dubbed as the “Patriot Way”:

• Their self-critical, perfectionist, and militaristic approach;
• Their emphasis on team, equality among players and lack of individual ego;
• Their strong work ethic, intelligence and high level of focus and preparation for each individual game;
• Their versatile players, able to play multiple positions; and
• Their multiple schemes intended to take advantage of their opponent’s weaknesses.

Since 2000, the philosophy in making personnel decisions and in game planning has focused on the “team” concept, stressing preparation, strong work ethic, versatility, and lack of individual ego.

Is there anything wrong with that? Not really. I’m all in favor of a “militaristic approach” to football, and nothing else in this description of “The Patriot Way” really bothers me. The problem is that Belichick’s philosophy is insufficient explanation of New England’s “dynasty” with Tom Brady at quarterback. In the era of the NFL salary cap, Brady’s willingness to be underpaid — his salary was always less than his value to the Patriots — was crucial to their ability to remain competitive. This was how “emphasis on team, equality among players and lack of individual ego” manifested itself so powerfully during New England’s glory years, when they played in 10 Super Bowls and won six of them.

Unfortunately, this success led Belichick to think he’d hit upon some kind of magic formula that could produce victory without regard to personnel and — this is the real killer — subsequent years have demonstrated that Bill Belichick is a very poor judge of personnel, particularly on offense.

Andrew Callahan makes a key point about this:

Do you know the last college receiver the Patriots selected who became a multi-year NFL starter?
That would be Deion Branch in 2002. That’s right.
It’s been more than 20 years since Belichick drafted and developed a true wideout. Tom Brady papered over that problem for two decades, as he did many dynasty-era deficiencies.

This is where Kirby’s phrase “Gucci defense, Dollar General offense” is most glaring: Every sports writer in Boston has bemoaned the lack of what they call a “true Number One” wide receiver and, as Callahan points out, it’s Belichick’s inability to find such a talent in the draft that has put the Patriots into such a deficit on offense. Because top wide receivers — speed demons whose downfield threat keeps the defense honest — are so valuable in the NFL, if you can’t get one in the draft, you’re going to have to bleed yourself dry to get one via trade or free agency. And when it comes to evaluating collegiate receivers, Bill Belichick sucks.

Here’s where the “dictator surrounded by cronies” factor boomerangs around to whack New England in the back of the skull. Not only is Belichick the head coach of the Patriots, he’s also the general manager. Everybody on the staff — assistant coaches, front office personnel, etc. — answers to Belichick, so that the scouts and other people assigned to evaluate draft prospects is handpicked by Belichick, who has the final say-so on all such matters. Belichick’s coaching specialty is defense; he was defensive coordinator under Bill Parcells with the New York Giants when they won two Super Bowls. When it comes to picking linebackers or cornerbacks, Belichick does just fine. Wide receivers? Not so much.

Infamously, in 2019, the Patriots spent their first-round pick on N’Keal Harry out of Arizona State. Harry was a complete bust, who’s never had more than 33 catches in a season; Harry was traded in 2022 for a seventh-round pick, and is nowadays a member of the practice squad for the Minnesota Vikings. Wasting a first-round pick on a total failure is made all the more painful by the fact that, four picks after the Patriots chose Harry, the San Francisco 49ers picked Deebo Samuel from South Carolina, who in 2021 caught 77 passes for 1,405 yards, and led the NFL in average yards per catch. If N’Keal Harry was an isolated incident — hey, anybody can make a mistake — that would be one thing, but as Callahan says, it’s been more than 20 years since the Patriots drafted a top wideout. “But what about Julian Edelman?” you say. Edelman was a one-off — a seventh-rounder from Kent State who, while lacking outstanding speed, was an excellent route-runner with great hands.

Something I forgot to mention: Belichick has two of his sons working as assistant coaches on defense. Steve Belichick is the play-caller and Brian Belichick coaches the safeties. Neither of them has ever worked for any other team but the Patriots, which raises the question whether any other team would hire them, or if their employment in New England is nothing but nepotism. Returning to the dictator motif, is it fair to say the Belichick boys are the Qusay and Uday Hussein of Foxborough?

You could ask my brother Kirby his opinion, but brace yourself for an expletive-filled rant whenever you say the word “Belichick” around him.

The bottom line is, the Patriots offense sucks, and the architect of this disastrous 2-10 season is evading responsibility because the Boston sports media have bought into a narrative that makes Mac Jones the scapegoat. Every one of them are now engaged in a delusional fantasy in which the Patriots draft a quarterback — Caleb Williams of USC, Drake Maye of North Carolina, Jayden Daniels of LSU — and instantly become competitive. The problem with that pipe dream? Mac Jones was (and, I would argue, still is) better than any of the QBs the Boston media are fantasizing about as New England’s coming savior.

Let’s just take Caleb Williams for example. In two seasons at USC, Williams has completed 599 of 888 passes (67.5%) for 7,870 yards (8.9 yards per passing attempt) with 72 TDs and 10 interceptions, winning 18 games and losing 8. In his final two seasons at Alabama — including three starts his junior year, after Tua Tagovailoa was injured — Mac Jones completed 408 of 543 passes (75.1%) for 6,003 yards (11.1 yards per passing attempt) with 55 TDs and 7 interceptions, winning 15 games and losing 1. His senior year, of course, Alabama was undefeated and won the National Championship, as Jones set NCAA records for completion percentage and passer rating. None of the would-be saviors about whom the Boston pundits are drooling have anything close to the pedigree that Jones brought to New England when he was drafted in 2021. Belichick and “The Patriot Way” have ruined Jones’s career, and if anyone in Boston thinks it’s going to get better with a new first-round draft pick at quarterback, they need to seek psychiatric help. Probably the Patriots will start Bailey Zappe the rest of the season, and if the Mac Jones era in New England is over, that’s the best thing that could happen for Mac Jones.

Fuck New England, fuck the Boston sports media, and fuck “The Patriot Way.” Kirby ain’t the only one who can cuss a blue streak, y’know.



 

Category: Football

‘Republican’ ‘Presidential’ ‘Debate’

Posted on | December 7, 2023 | Comments Off on ‘Republican’ ‘Presidential’ ‘Debate’

Let’s face it — none of the four candidates on the stage Wednesday night are going to be the Republican presidential nominee. Donald Trump beats all of them by at least 30 points. What was the point of that televised exercise? Cui bono? Chris Christie’s poll numbers are microscopically small, but he feeds the media’s anti-Trump appetite:

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie called former President Donald Trump a “dictator” during Wednesday night’s debate and said that “he wants to exact retribution” if he wins back the Oval Office.
The rhetoric mirrors a narrative spun in recent days as at least three leftist outlets — the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Washington Post — have worked to stoke fear about a potential second Trump administration.
Christie first attacked Trump as a dictator in his opening statement while criticizing the other candidates for not speaking about Trump to that point:

The fact is that when you go and you say the truth about somebody who is a dictator, a bully, who has taken shots at everybody, whether they’ve given them great service or not over time, who dares to disagree with him, then I understand why these three are timid to say anything about it. . . .

Christie contended that Trump “instructed others to commit crimes,” which the federal government alleges but has not been proven in court.
“So, do I think he was kidding when he said he was a dictator? All you have to do is look at the history and that’s why failing to speak out against him, making excuses for him, pretending that somehow he’s a victim, empowers him,” Christie added.
“He will only be his own retribution. He doesn’t care for the American people. It’s Donald Trump first,” concluded Christie.

Now that he’s gotten his fourth TV debate appearance, Chris Christie has completed the purpose of his “Republican” “presidential” “campaign.” The anti-Trump forces have chosen Nikki Haley as their preferred alternative, and the other names on the ballot in Iowa, New Hampshire, etc., are irrelevant. It’s now Trump-vs.-Haley, which I would expect to be a 70-30 landslide for Trump, and all these televised “debate” circuses are just about producing sound bites for the cable networks.



 

Category: Debates, Republicans

Crazy Professors Are Dangerous

Posted on | December 7, 2023 | 1 Comment

UNLV gunman Anthony Polito

My office TV is tuned to CNN (I watch, so you don’t have to) and the network went wall-to-wall Wednesday with coverage of a shooting on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV).

THREE PEOPLE KILLED! Yeah, and 541 people have been shot to death in Chicago so far this year. What’s your point? Why saturation coverage of this one incident in Vegas, when the weekly death toll in Chicago (Baltimore, Memphis, Philadelphia, etc.) is so much higher?

Media bias being what it is, I suspected CNN might have some sort of ulterior motive for devoting so much attention to the UNLV shooting. Was it a hate crime? Turns out, it was a disgruntled academic:

A business studies professor who wrote a 15-page theory on the Zodiac serial killer and posted about ‘powerful organizations bent on global domination’ shot-and-killed three people at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, police said.
The suspect, Anthony Polito, opened fire on the fourth floor of the Lee Business School at 11:45am, prompting a massive response from law enforcement. Around 20 minutes after their arrival, officers located the gunman, shooting him dead.
Officials say that Polito, 67, was armed with a pistol during the attack which began after his application for a professorship was rejected. Polito was on staff at East Carolina University in North Carolina between 2001 and 2017.
None of those who were killed were students. In addition to the three deceased people, another person was wounded and remains in critical condition. . . .
For years, the killer maintained a website about his life, he posted, among other things, about having decoded cryptic messages sent by the killer in the unsolved Zodiac murder case. . . .
In his favorite movie section, Polito’s argues that each ‘argues a truth with powerful eloquence.’
Some of his favorite movies include Michael Moore’s Roger & Me, Oliver Stone’s conspiracy-laden JFK and the film version of Ayn Rand’s conservative epic, The Fountainhead.
Polito lists among the ‘Great Minds of the Twentieth Century,’ Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein and George Soros.
There is another section titled: ‘Powerful Organizations Bent on Global Domination!’
Among the organizations listed are the Rothchild family, Bilderberg Group, the International Monetary Fund and Economics Department of MIT.
In that section, Polito posted a link to a website created by far-right wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Elsewhere on the page, Polito lists his own personal theories on various mysteries including, the Zodiac killer, the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and the true meaning of the 2010 Leonardo DiCaprio movie Inception.

Here’s my theory: Crazy People Are Dangerous. 



 

Category: Crime, Nevada

In The Mailbox: 12.06.23 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | December 7, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.06.23 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas!

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Will Qatar Abandon and Eject Hamas? Saint Nicholas, The Buccaneers, Norman Lear RIP, and Poison Ivy League Pre Hanukkah Jew Hate
Twitchy: America’s Dumbest Bernie Babe Manages To Top Herself In Epic Embarrassing Post, Saira Rao Sees Taylor Swift TIME Cover, Promptly Hallucinates, and Harvard Prez Tries To “Clarify” Her Position In Letter – Nobody’s Buying It
Louder With Crowder: DINKs are the new TikTok trend bragging about not having kids, but they just look like losers, National WOMEN’S Law Center President: Female Athletes Should “Learn to Lose Gracefully” Against Trans Competitors, and Democrat slanders Riley Gaines as “transphobic,” so Riley calls her misogynist
Vox Popoli: The Disney Insurrection, also, All Ur Yule Are Belong to Him
Gab News: Bold Conversations – Free Speech & The Israeli-American Dynamic

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Mayorkas Opens the Border Again, Now to Ecuadorians
American Greatness: House Republicans Launch Inquiry into Fani Willis Collusion with January 6 Committee, SecDef Austin Threatens to Deploy Troops if Ukraine Aid is Shut Down, and New Zealand Whistleblower Claims Public Health Data Shows COVID Vaccines ‘Are Killing People’
American Thinker: College Students Revel in Blissful Ignorance at Pro-Gaza Rallies
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Canadian loses $2,500 after wire transfer to Cuba goes missing, Maduro looking for a Falklands, Cuban dictatorship carries out 300 documented acts of repression in November, Reports from Cuba: La Fortuna, an empty bodega that had its glory days, like so many others in Cuba, and A word about Mr. Kissinger
BattleSwarm: Explaining The Sam Altman/OpenAI Thing, also, Lt. Gov. Patrick: Dade Phelan Is “Impossible To Work With”
Behind The Black: Iran and China complete orbital launches, NASA completes investigation into the failure of the OSIRIS-REx drogue parachute, Psyche takes its first pictures, Big Martian gullies partly filled with glacial material, and Another example of the inability of Democrats to condemn bigotry
Cafe Hayek: Racist America?
CDR Salamander: Keeping An Eye On The Long Game Part XCIX
Da Tech Guy: I think this Video Should be Shown at Every Campus Anti-Israel Protest
Dana Loesch: The Third Debate
Don Surber: Trump the dictator?
First Street Journal: Liz Magill is not just toast, but toast which has fallen on the floor, buttered side down, also, Is Penn President Liz Magill as dumb as a box of rocks?
Gates Of Vienna: Jew-Hatred vs. Islamophobia in Germany, also, Carefully Chosen Words
The Geller Report: Islamic Scholar: “Allah Allows Muslim Men to Rape Non-Muslim women”, also, YES! Israel Begins Pumping Seawater to Flood Hamas’ Underworld Tunnel Network
Hogewash: An Irregular Dwarf, The Usual Suspects, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Adam Carolla: ‘Every Mainstream Media Narrative…Has Been Wrong’, also, American Fiction Director Shares Shocking Hollywood Stories
The Lid: Differences Between Christmas And Hanukkah (With Tongue Firmly In Cheek)
Legal Insurrection: Columbia University Shuts Down Event Justifying October 7th Hamas Attacks on Israel, Surge In Israeli Women Signing Up For Combat Units After October 7 Mass Rapes And Sexual Mutilation, After Congress Allocated $7.5 Billion for Electric Vehicle Chargers, Exactly Zero Have Been Built, Teachers ‘Scared to go to School’ Due to Student Violence and Hardly Any Punishment, Report Shows Double Standard in University Responses to October 7th and Related Anti-Semitism, and In Attempt to Boost Recruiting, U.S. Army Secretary Shuffles Deck Chairs on the Titanic
Nebraska Energy Observer: Debate Tonight
Outkick: Aaron Rodgers Takes Jets Organization And Culture To Task Following Leak About Zach Wilson, NHL Draft Will Likely Be Held At Sphere, Gary Bettman To Get Booed At One Of The Most Technologically Advanced Venues On Planet, Did Dave Roberts Just Cost The Dodgers Their Shot At Shohei Ohtani? The Phoenix Coyotes Are On Fire And Have ‘Dateline’ To Thank (Sort Of), Nick Saban Retirement Update: Alabama Winning National Championship Next Month May Provide Perfect Exit Strategy, Stephen A. Smith Shouldn’t Be ESPN’s Highest-Paid When Compared To Troy Aikman, Pat McAfee, Others, and Yankees Aren’t Done After Juan Soto Deal, Could Push Payroll Above $300 Million
Power Line: What Innocent Civilians? Americans At Least Pretend to Want Less Government, and The Presidents Walk It Back
Shark Tank: Rubio, Scott, & Balart Seek Congressional Support For Venezuelan Opposition Leader
Shot In The Dark: If The DFL Were A Spouse It’d Be An Abuser, also, False Flags – The Career
The Political Hat: The Lawlessness In Schools
This Ain’t Hell: Military extremism, CV22 crash, Venezuela, also, Two More Accounted For
Transterrestrial Musings: Space Rescue, Human Rights, and Disinformation Starts At The Top
Victory Girls: Randi Weingarten Gaslights America’s Parents Again, also, Kim Jong Un To North Korean Women: Have More Commie Babies
Volokh Conspiracy: Does Divorcing Spouse’s Euthanizing Family Pet Violate Court Orders Preventing Disposal of “Property”?
Watts Up With That: WaPo: People will Copy You if you Buy a Heat Pump, California’s Electric Truck Mandate Conundrums, and Turning Food into Jet Fuel
The Federalist: Removing Liars & Alleged Criminals From Office Means Biden Should Be Gone By Now, Biden Says The Emails, Bank Records, Whistleblowers, And Testimony Proving His Involvement In Family Biz Are ‘Bunch Of Lies’, Don’t Blame Tuberville For Dropping His Pentagon Abortion Protest, Joe Biden Used Email Aliases To Correspond With Hunter’s Business Partner 327 Times, Bundle Up For Coal-Killer John Kerry’s Cold, Dark Winter, Democrats Think The Policies That Destroyed California Are Fit For All Of America, and The Military Recruitment Crisis Mirrors America’s Changing Values
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet: Stabs & Jabs

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 12.06.23 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | December 6, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.06.23 (Morning Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Heading down to Las Vegas (again) for VA stuff tomorrow and Friday morning. Posting may be more erratic than usual.
Meanwhile, it seems like Tuesday was a slow news day. Thank G*d. 
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Memento mori

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Do You Think You Own Those Movies & TV Shows You Paid For?
Average Bubba: Monday Madness – Tuesday Morning Edition
EBL: Willa Fitzgerald
Twitchy: Mitch McConnell Refuses To Call For Menendez’ Ouster & Twitter Is Pissed, Harvard’s President Won’t Admit Israel Has A Right To Exist, and Get Ready For Another Riot Season
Louder With Crowder: Parents not notified when school forced 11-year-old daughter to share bed with boy, he’s “trans” and was in “stealth mode”
Vox Popoli: The Death Spiral of Journalism, Thereby Raising the Question Finland Doubles Down on Failure, Who is Like the Beast? and Thinking Outside the Engineering Box
Stoic Observations: Running of the Monitor

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: New Zealand Covid-19 vaccination database video
American Greatness: Biden Admin Promises $3B Gift to U.N. Green Climate Fund
American Thinker: Our Institutions Have Betrayed Our Trust, also, Saving America Starts with Rejecting Digital Currency
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Christmas Deconstruction News
Babalu Blog: U.S. diplomat arrested for being a Castro spy became an agent for Cuba in 1981, During visit to Iran, Cuba’s ‘president’ reaffirms their support for Hamas terrorists, and The perfect Christmas gift for your loved ones in Hialeah
Behind The Black: Red China launches two satellites, Stratolaunch completes first test captive carry flight with powered Talon hypersonic vehicle, Ingenuity completes its 67th flight on Mars, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter takes another look at the non-face on Mars, and Pushback: Macy’s sued for its illegal discriminatory hiring policies
Da Tech Guy: The college football mess, also, Terror for Fun and Profit
Don Surber: States warn AP about helping Hamas
First Street Journal: Why are Westerners so deluded about #Hamas and #AntiSemitism?
The Geller Report: Military-Age Chinese Nationals Cross the US-Mexico Border, Democrat Senator Durbin Proposes they Join the Military, US Official: Hamas Won’t Release More Women Because They Reveal Monstrous Sex Crimes, and Hamas Terrorists Get “Lifetime Pensions” With US Dollars
Hogewash: Ganymede, also, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: The Very Best Movies from 1999
Legal Insurrection: Venezuelans Vote To Authorize Take-Over of Oil-Rich Region of Neighboring Guyana, House GOP: FBI ‘Abused Its Counterterrorism Tools to Target Catholic Americans as Potential Domestic Terrorists’, Two U. Texas Austin Graduate Students Removed From Teaching Duties After Messaging Students About ‘Mental Health and Violence in Gaza’, Liberal Professors Reportedly Leaving Florida University System Over Ron DeSantis Policies, and Hamas Drugged Hostages, Including Kids, to Make Them Look Happy During Televised Release
Nebraska Energy Observer: It seems
Outkick: Bryson DeChambeau Offers Up Idea For How LIV Golf Can Be Integrated With PGA Tour, Pat McAfee Says ‘A**hole’ Live On ESPN, Then Proceeds To List The Employees The Company Allegedly Fired To Hire Him, Stephen A. Smith Tells Clay Travis He Believes A Donald Trump Re-Election Could Cause Another Civil War, Richard Sherman Goes Nuclear On SEC Football During Fiery Rant, O.J. Simpson Reacts To Florida State/Alabama Playoff Disaster, and Brandi Love Reacts To Florida State Playoff Crisis, Suggests The System Is Broken
Power Line: Realize this, Atrocities, and Of slimy filaments & dirty threads
Shark Tank: DeSantis Rolls Out $114.4 Billion Budget Proposal
Shot In The Dark: No Mask Conceals Stupidity, Leftist Western Intellectuals – The Moral Density Of A Collapsed Star,
The Political Hat: Wokeness By Any Other Name
This Ain’t Hell: SECDEF- Israel Facing Strategic Defeat, Purple Heartbreak: Living the Lie, Tuesday Euromadness, and Ukrainian Sniper Claims World Record
Transterrestrial Musings: The B-Team, also, Joe’s Long Record Of Lying about Biden Inc.
Victory Girls: Liz Cheney Takes Her Middle School Mean Girl Schtick On The Road
Volokh Conspiracy: Making the rubble bounce in Montana
Watts Up With That: Why Won’t those Troglodytes Trust Us and How, How, How! Can We Finally Get Through to THEM?!!! Number Eleventy Zillion
The Federalist: If One Pennsylvania County Cleaned Up Its Messy Elections, So Can The Rest Of The State, The Results Are In: Covid Lockdowns Crippled Students’ Math Proficiency, Republicans Can’t Defeat Antisemitism Without Fighting All Anti-White Racism, ‘Two-Tiered Justice System’: House Finds Biden’s DOJ, Weiss Gave Hunter Biden Special Treatment, Biden Admin Gives Catholics, Parents The ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Treatment But Not Violent Antisemites, and Democrats Are Afraid Trump Will Do To Them What They Have Done To Him
Mark Steyn: The Lunatic Mainstream

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Category: Linkagery

‘Delusional-Sounding Allegations’: Conspiracy Kook Killed in Explosion

Posted on | December 6, 2023 | Comments Off on ‘Delusional-Sounding Allegations’: Conspiracy Kook Killed in Explosion

Police were attempting to serve a warrant Monday night at a home in Arlington, Virginia, when the house suddenly exploded. Human remains were found at the scene of the blast and police say homeowner James W. Yoo died in the explosion, the cause of which is unknown.

What is known, however, is that Yoo had a history of mental illness, that he filled his social media pages with bizarre messages, and that he filed a lawsuit that was dismissed in 2018. The judge wrote:

The Court has carefully reviewed each page of Plaintiff’s submissions. Plaintiff’s Complaint consists of delusional-sounding allegations intermixed with other statements that seem more factual. The allegations concern matters from Plaintiff’s childhood to the present. The allegations frequently involve Plaintiff’s interactions with his sister and wife. The pleading includes references to Plaintiff being hospitalized at RGH [Rochester General Hospital] against his will, and to various contacts with law enforcement. The Complaint also alludes to Plaintiff’s impending divorce from his wife. Ultimately, the Complaint indicates that Plaintiff believes he is the victim of conspiracy against him by his sister, his ex-wife, and others including RGH. Plaintiff believes, for example, that his sister, ex-wife and RGH conspired to prevent him from obtaining an attorney. Interspersed with these allegations are references to news stories appearing in the media over the past decades, that Plaintiff apparently believes are connected to the conspiracy that he describes. For example, Plaintiff apparently believes there is a connection between the alleged conspiracy, the terrorism on September 11, 2001, and the current investigation into the 2016 presidential election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In short, James W. Yoo was bonkers, berserk, daft, demented, off his rocker, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

CNN has more background on the case:

Since the explosion, investigators have uncovered “concerning social media posts” allegedly made by Yoo, the police chief said.
LinkedIn posts from Yoo’s account espouse rambling and at times incoherent conspiracy theories against government officials, law enforcement, media outlets and, in one post on Friday, his neighbors whom the post accuses of being spies and collecting his information for unnamed handlers. . . .
Both the FBI and Arlington police said Tuesday that they had previously interacted with Yoo, but none of the encounters led authorities to open investigations.
Yoo had communicated with the FBI for several years through phone calls, letters and online tips, said David Sundberg, assistant director in charge of the agency’s Washington, DC, field office.
“I would characterize these communications as primarily complaints about alleged frauds he believed were perpetrated against him,” Sundberg said. The communications did not prompt the agency to open any investigations, he added.
Prior to Monday, Arlington police had documented only two calls for service at the address over the past few years, both for complaints about loud noise, according to Penn.

The key bit of information there is that, despite his self-evident craziness, Yoo’s behavior did not lead “authorities to open investigations” — until, of course, he blew himself up. Now there’s an investigation.

The U.K. Daily Mail has some more about the crazy stuff Yoo was saying on social media. Paula Bolyard at PJMedia does a deep dive into these online rants, concluding that Yoo was “a disturbed individual whose rambling social media posts indicate that he may have been spiraling out of control in recent months.” Gosh, it’s almost enough to make you think that maybe Crazy People Are Dangerous or something.



 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 12.04.23

Posted on | December 5, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.04.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

ugh, again?

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: They Promised That Electric Vehicles Would Be More Reliable
EBL: Eva Vlaardingerbroek on Geert Wilders’ Win, Washington’s Farewell, and Strange Angel
Twitchy: Sky News Presenter Tells IDF Spox Palestinians Have No Electricity To Charge Their Phones, Idiots Who Burned Down A Wendy’s For BLM Get $500 Fine, and Peter Daou Asks Us To Substitute Chicago For Gaza, Gets Wrecked
Louder With Crowder: Matt Rife finds new way to trigger haters…on a Jordan Peterson podcast roasting people crying about his Netflix special, Jussie Smollett headed back to jail over hate crime hoax, Trans TikToker bullies pizza guy over ‘misgendering,’ the guy barely speaks English and thinks it’s funny, and Parents of 9-year-old attacked by Deadspin hire lawyers: “It is not enough to quietly remove a tweet”
Vox Popoli: Zelensky in the Bunker, The Literary Catastrophe of Kindle Unlimited, Seeing the Real Paris, and The Worst Form of Government
Stoic Observations: On Privilege
Draw & Talk: Holy Smokes! 700 Books Were Packed – Was Yours One Of Them?
Gab News: Igniting The Divine Flame

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Masterful Pride
American Conservative: Unmonitored Minors on Dangerous Devices 
American Greatness: Weimar America
American Thinker: Donald Trump: Man in the Arena, Inside the Woke Air Force, Winkin’, Blinken, and Nod, and For the West to Live, Immigration(ism) Must Die
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: The Castro dictatorship and its ties to Pablo Escobar and drug trafficking, Update on Teslas being purchased by Cubans: Meet John Felder, car dealer extraordinaire, Worsening healthcare crisis in communist Cuba could spark a massive uprising, Hard evidence: Cuban mercenaries filmed in trenches at Ukraine war front, and Cuba’s fake president signs various accords with Iran, pledges assistance in war effort against Israel
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for December 2, 18-20 Handgun Ban Struck Down, and Cruz Campaigning Against Phelan Stooges
Behind The Black: Amazon signs launch contract with SpaceX, Boeing dropped from competition for Air Force “doomsday” plane, South Korea successfully test launches a new solid-fueled rocket, Italian subcontractor for Arianespace misplaces two rocket tanks, and Cowardice and fear from Western leaders; Courage and determination from Israel and its Arab allies
Cafe Hayek: What Might Have Been, A Contribution to Sound Economics Education, and Economic Growth Cannot Be Promoted by a Government “Moonshot”
CDR Salamander: Midrats December Melee! also, USS Carney‘s Red Sea Battles 
Chicago Boyz: Some Thoughts from France, also, Man in the Universe
Da Tech Guy: This Explains a lot on Fauci, Grooming standards and military recruitment, 15 Thoughts on 15 Years of Blogging Under the Fedora, Liberals decry ideological divide between young people that threatens marriage, of course they blame conservatives, and Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder Review
Don Surber: Of course movies have messages
First Street Journal: Are you ready to surrender your rights for the “common good”? also, If using rape to terrorize Jewish women helps achieve a ‘Palestinian’ nation, Pramila Jayapal Williamson is not ready to allow “hierarchies of oppressions” to stand in the way!
Gates Of Vienna: The Two Goats, The Muezzin Yodels at the Christmas Market, Allahu Akhbar Moment in the 15th Arrondissement, Fire and Ice, Pfizer Knew the Vax Was Poison, Russia Cracks Down on Sexual Perversion, and A 100% French Mujahid
The Geller Report: Video Evidence From Jan 6th Committee “Vanished”, Massive Layoffs Underway at CONDE NAST Including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair et al, Biden Regime To Withhold Money From Schools Unless They Go Woke, and Genocidal Jew Hate Protest Groups Raked in Millions in NYC Taxpayer Funds
Glenn Reynolds: Living & Dying In The 3/4 Time
Hogewash: What’s Up for December, 2023, Doublethink, The Gravitational Wave Background, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: How May December Is Both Muted and Worth Your Time, No Legs – Disney’s Wish Plummets in Week 2, Did Hamas Accidentally Crush Cancel Culture? Why Taylor Swift Must Defend 9-Year-Old Chiefs Fan, and Dream Scenario Taunts Self-Righteous Millennials
Legal Insurrection: U. Utah Profs Cancel Classes and Host ‘Healing Circle’ When Detransitioner Comes to Speak on Campus, Biden Administration Considers Breaching WA’s Snake River Dams to Save “Imperiled Salmon Species”, Ilhan Omar, Other Democrats Express ‘Concern’ Over MSNBC’s Cancellation of Mehdi Hasan’s Show, CNN’s Dana Bash Stops Rep. Jayapal When She Tries to ‘But Israel’ When Pushed to Condemn Hamas Raping Israeli Women, University of Arizona Reinstates Profs Who Were Suspended Over Israel/Hamas Comments, and Swing State Muslim Leaders Call To #AbandonBiden In 2024
Nebraska Energy Observer: Saturday – just for you, Advent, and Monday, Monday
Outkick: New Indiana Coach Comes Out Firing, Immediately Makes New Enemies During Electric Rant, Danica Patrick Hits the Beach In Hawaii, The Oregon & Washington Cheerleaders Battle It Out & The End Is Here For The SEC On CBS, Sad Georgia Fans Go Viral As Bulldogs Watch Playoff Hopes Disappear, Booger McFarland Calls CFP Rankings ‘Travesty To The Sport’ While Rest Of ESPN Panel Tries To Protect Company’s Product, Family Of 9-Year-Old Holden Armenta Threatens Deadspin With Lawsuit, and Trevor Lawrence Sprains Ankle And Jaguars Hopeful MRI Shows He’s Not Done For Season
Power Line: Chauvin Stabbed by Former FBI Informant, Educatile Dysfunction, A White Coat Supremacy Reader, and Why We Are Careening Toward Bankruptcy
Shark Tank: Florida Pols Big Mad Over FSU Playoff Snub; Trump Blames DeSantis
Shot In The Dark: The Why We War, Got To Be A Better Way Home, and Just A Couple Of Quick Questions For Western Feminists
The Political Hat: Expression Of Wrongthink Is Doubleplusungood In New York
This Ain’t Hell: Viktor Belenko dead at 76, United Nations- Curb Your Meat Diet! McCormick Farms requested to be added on the “off limit establishments” memorandum, Employees with the VA facing additional mandatory overtime, Ups and downs, and No Room At The Inn
Transterrestrial Musings: Living And Dying In 3/4 Time, Genital Preferences, A Long, But Interesting Video, and Wising Up
Victory Girls: Susan Sarandon Grudgingly Changes Her Tune, COP28: John F. Kerry* Commits $3 Billion To Annihilate The Coal Industry, and Even Democrats Can’t Stand Occasional Cortex, Book Reveals
Volokh Conspiracy: Fifth Circuit Rules Against Texas in Case Where State Claimed Immigration and Drug Smuggling Qualify as “Invasion”, Chief Justice Roberts’ Chance to Redeem Himself! and Plaintiff Sues Defendant, Alleging Defendant’s “Niche Is Cancel Culture”
Watts Up With That: NAS study raises concern over offshore wind harming endangered whales, King Charles Delivers Highly-Politicised Speech to Support Collectivist Net Zero Project, No, CNN, Climate Change is Not Costing the U.S. Billions, and Another Critical Thinker Reaches The Obvious Conclusion: Intermittent Renewables Can’t Work On Their Own
The Federalist: Escaping Twin Flames Shows How Easy It Is To Brainwash People With Radical Gender Ideology, Washington Post: Killing Foreigners Is Good For American Business, To Win, Republicans Have To Be Smarter And Tougher Than Sen. James Lankford, Heritage Action Says House GOP Will Face Consequences If The Pentagon’s Abortion Policy Isn’t Defunded, Bombshell Audit Reveals How Disney Bribed And Scammed Its Way Into An Unaccountable Florida Empire, and Appeals Court Smacks Down Democrats’ Ludicrous Challenge To Florida’s Congressional Map
Mark Steyn: Great Men Deserve Great Pictures: Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and Diversity Stabbing of the Day

* “Who, by the way, served in Vietnam.” – Rush Limbaugh

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Category: Linkagery

Lesbian Teacher Sentenced to Prison for Sexually Molesting Two Teenage Girls

Posted on | December 4, 2023 | 2 Comments

That’s a headline you’ll never see in any mainstream media publication. There is no such thing as a gay pedophile, so far as the media are concerned, and on those occasions when minors are abused in such circumstances, journalists are obliged to conceal the most obvious facts.

Longtime blog buddy Dana Pico calls attention to how the case of April Bradford was reported in the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Former Floyd County administrator pleads guilty to sexual contact involving students
A former Floyd County teacher, administrator and coach plead guilty Thursday to multiple charges involving sexual contact with students from 1997 to 2007.
April Bradford, 51, of Weeksbury, plead guilty to eight counts of sodomy third degree and 11 counts of sexual abuse first degree.
Bradford admitted she sexually abused two students while she was a teacher and coach during the students’ middle and high school years.
Bradford will serve three and a half years in prison, according to Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office, which prosecuted the case against Bradford.

Dana points out that, first of all, the Herald-Leader did not include a mugshot of Bradford, and furthermore, they omitted the original charges, which would have sent her to prison for at least 10 years, instead of the three-and-half she got in the plea deal. More importantly, however, they did not mention that the two students Bradford molested were female.

The Herald-Leader omitted this information despite the fact that the two victims were interviewed by local TV news:

Thursday, the women who came forward about the abuse shared their experience, saying “justice was served.”
Jessica Hensley and Mary Prater stood to the side of the courtroom as Bradford made her plea, waiting to hear the word “guilty,” saying it finally allows them to feel heard.
“It’s just a huge win for us. It’s been a long time coming,” said Hensley. “The community seems somewhat divided. You know, people are always hesitant or they refuse to believe when someone like April really puts out this persona.”
The two say they suffered in silence for years and now feel relief and assurance in knowing their nightmare is over- and so is the potential nightmare for another young student.
“And that was the one comment that kept coming up to us is, ‘Why did they wait so long?’ And it’s very important for survivors of trauma- any kind of trauma, but especially sexual abuse- it takes a while to process and there’s a lot of guilt and shame that comes with that. And sometimes it may take 20 years, but that’s okay. If you want to speak on your trauma, speak on it. Because it is healing,” said Hensley. . . .
They say they will continue to share their stories to help other victims feel the world is safe to tell their own.
“Because we don’t want it to happen anybody else. No other child should suffer and go through what we went through,” said Prater. “They don’t deserve it and neither did we.”

Years ago, I realized that the media deal with what we are now supposed to call “the LGBTQ community” not as reporters, but as public-relations agents. Their overriding concern is to ensure that the public receives only favorable information about gay people. Even when the news about gay people is very negative — and hey, the AIDS epidemic was kind of a bummer — the coverage is designed to encourage sympathy for gay people, who are portrayed as Just Like You and Me (Only Better).

So here you have a story about a lesbian teacher who molested two girls over a span of 10 years. In at least one case, the molestation began when the victim was just in middle school. This is rather heinous, and the LGBTQ Publicity Agents at the Lexington Herald-Leader therefore hit upon the clever idea of omitting the gender of the victims, so that readers would have no idea that the case involved homosexual behavior.

For the record, I have no idea whether gay people are more or less likely than heterosexuals to commit such crimes, and would be skeptical of any social science “research” on the question, whatever it showed. My point is that journalists ought not to be in the business of suppressing facts.



 

Category: Crime, Education, Gays, Kentucky, Media Bias
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