Rule 5 Sunday: Meanwhile In The Kitchen

Posted on | October 2, 2023 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Meanwhile In The Kitchen

Things are getting a little cold to be frolicking outside in bikinis (especially here in Tonopah, where it’s getting down to the 30s at night) but there’s always fun to be had in the kitchen, right? This week’s appetizer courtesy of kbdabear’s Saturday Night Sideboob tweets.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Banana for scale

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Flying Illegals Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Anti-MAGA Dirty Whore Judge, Is Spider Venom The New Viagra? La Dolce Vita, Miss Zimbabwe, If No-one Watched The GOP Debate…, Belarus Recruiting Women? How To Resist Pumpkin Spice Season, The Most Wunderbar Time Of The Year, Drops Of God, The Covenant, The Continental, and Silo.

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Emily Elizabeth, Fish Pic Friday – Allie Beth Tolliver, Rose, A Dolphin Storm Chaser Visits Baltimore, The Wednesday Wetness, RIP: Illya Kuryakin, Hunter Sues Rudy, Tuesday Tanlines, Dutch Cutie Warns of War on Hamburgers, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Flotsam and Jetsam in the Wake of Ophelia, Sunday Sunrise and Fall is Fell

FLAPPR: T.I.T.S. For September 29

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

Let’s Play, ‘Find the Hidden Racism’!

Posted on | October 1, 2023 | 1 Comment

Appalling is a word we don’t use often enough, but it’s perhaps the best word for what is going on in America’s public schools in the name of “social justice.” You may not be able to read the text in that screen-cap, but apparently academics have invented a term, “evaded racism.” Here’s a brief summary from a journal article:

Evaded Racism
Prominent race scholar, Richard Valencia (2012) argues that while in the past intellectual inferiority and cultural deprivation were prominent theories used to uphold racial inequity in schooling, today, individualized analysis of underachievement are tools that maintain the status quo. K. D. Brown & Brown (2012) contend that dominant rhetoric blames students of Color and their families for a lack of academic success, promoting a shift in their behavior as the solution (e.g., reminding parents to read more to their children; advocating for a growth mind-set), rather than suggesting shifts to structures or policies that systematically fail students of Color (e.g., limited resources, racial profiling; Malagon & Alvarez, 2010). Blaming communities of Color for educational inequality at the individual level invisiblizes institutional responsibility, thus providing a rationale to study race yet evade concrete analyses of racism (Bonilla Silva, 2006).

Got it? Now watch this short video clip:

“Things that white families do, like reading to their children”

Woke k-12 teacher is opposed to schools promoting positive activities like families reading to kids, because that’s what white people do.

She thinks they should instead be focused on “oppressive and racist… pic.twitter.com/ZYRU49PBUL

— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) September 30, 2023

This person — and anyone who thinks like her — should never be allowed anywhere near a classroom. But that’s obvious enough. What perhaps requires more explanation is why liberals think this way. Once again, I must recommend Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy as the single best description of the psychology of modern liberalism, which I think is highly relevant to this kind of “woke” nonsense that’s infesting American education.

Liberals are unwitting guilty, as I recently remarked, of being “childishly simple-minded . . . Whatever they like is good, and whatever they dislike is evil.” Although they consider themselves sophisticated and intellectually superior to others, liberals exhibit a tendency to think in a sort of Manichean dualism, where every controversy is seen as a struggle between the forces of good (i.e., themselves) and the forces of darkness (i.e., anyone who disagrees with them). Often, as a practical matter, it is impossible to distinguish between the liberal’s professed ideals — in this case, “equity” in education — and the narrow political interests of the Democratic Party. In this specific example, why are liberals so obsessed with the belief that “structures or policies” in public schools “systematically fail students of Color”? (Resist the temptation to ask why the authors felt the need to capitalize “Color.” Time is too precious.)

The reason why liberals are obsessed with racial “equity” in public schools is because the Democratic Party relies on votes from black and Hispanic people to win elections, period. Viewing these groups as their natural constituents, whose interests the Democratic Party exists to serve, liberals therefore must believe that (a) black and Hispanic people are extraordinarily virtuous, and therefore (b) anything bad that happens to black and Hispanic people is not their fault. So if it is demonstrably true that black and Hispanic students are, on average, lagging behind white and Asian students — the data on this point is abundant — the liberal must find some way to blame this problem on racism.

Let me tell you something about “equity” in education as the father of six children: No two children are identical, not even twins. Our children, two of whom are twin boys, have had quite varied education outcomes. Our oldest daughter got her university degree summa cum laude, a feat that none of her brothers have matched. The baby sister (now studying abroad for her junior year in university) also aspires to be summa cum laude, but we’ll have to wait and see for that. My point is that, if we cannot produce educational “equity” even among siblings who share the same genetic background and grew up in the same home, what are the chances of achieving “equity” in inner city Baltimore or Philadelphia?

“Equity” is a fool’s errand, a snipe hunt, and once you acknowledge the impossibility of such a goal, only politics can explain why anyone would waste time in pursuit of this ridiculous will-o’-the-wisp.

Something else: You can’t make chicken salad from chicken manure.

By the time children show up for their first day of school, at age 4 or 5, their basic educational aptitude is already pretty much established, and whatever the budget, policy or personnel of the school, educators do not possess a magic formula that can turn a stupid or lazy child into a future summa cum laude graduate. You don’t need any fancy theory or academic jargon to understand this basic truth. The need for theory and jargon arises from a desire to obscure the truth.

Actually, liberals turn the facts upside down, preferring to live in a weird inverted universe that is diametrically opposed to reality: The student didn’t fail school — the school failed the student! This pretzel-logic is required, as I say, by the political interests of the Democratic Party. Because the schools where “students of Color” are experiencing a “lack of academic success” are generally in deep-blue districts (Biden got 87% of the vote in Baltimore, 81% of the vote in Philadelphia, etc.), and the parents of these students are Democratic voters, the common-sense explanation of the problem is politically taboo. No one in an urban school system is going to tell the parents of their students: “Hey, you dumbass Biden voters, your kids have inherited your stupidity.”

The stupid apple seldom falls far from the stupid tree.

The need to avoid this obvious truth, you see, explains why liberals have put on their Magic X-Ray Spex, which enable them to see the invisible ultra-racism hidden in the “structural inequality” of education.

By the way — and it shouldn’t be necessary to point this out, but I will — is it not a fact that the vast majority of public school employees are Democrats? Isn’t it also a fact that most professors of education in our universities are loyal Democratic voters? And what about school boards in cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore? Aren’t these people all Democrats? So if there is “racial inequity in schooling,” whose fault is that? How could anyone blame Republicans for this?

It’s kind of like Jussie Smollett, claiming he got attacked by two racist homophobic Trump supporters in downtown Chicago at 2 a.m.

The story that liberals are telling about what’s wrong with our education system simply doesn’t add up. It’s not an explanation, it’s an excuse.

Category: Education, Racism

FMJRA 2.0: I Was Dreaming I Was Awake

Posted on | October 1, 2023 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: I Was Dreaming I Was Awake

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The Senators were on the road this week, taking two out of three from the Hated Yankees at Yankee Stadium and then sweeping the Reds at Cinergy Park, which is a lot like RFK only with less foul ground. Pat Dobson racked up his eighth and ninth wins, Vicente Romo got his fourth win and eleventh save against the Reds, and Bill Gogolewski is now 3-0 with two saves out of the bullpen. Next week, it’s a pair of games against the Red Sox at Fenway followed by three games at home against the Orioles.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Fly the Curly W flag!

Still ‘No Evidence’ of Biden Corruption?
The DaleyGator
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357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: Gewitter
A View From The Beach
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Rule 5 Monday: Farm Girls
Animal Magnetism
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‘Who Fought for Ukrainian Independence Against the Russians’ in WWII?
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In The Mailbox: 09.26.23
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In The Mailbox: 09.27.23 (Morning Edition)
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In The Mailbox: 09.27.23 (Evening Edition)
The DaleyGator
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De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum
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In The Mailbox: 09.29.23 (Afternoon Edition)
EBL
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In The Mailbox: 09.29.23 (Evening Edition)
EBL
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum

Top linkers for the week ending September 30:

EBL (10)
(tied) A View From The Beach and 357 Magnum (8)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

House Passes Spending Bill After Democrat (Allegedly) Pulls Fire Alarm

Posted on | September 30, 2023 | Comments Off on House Passes Spending Bill After Democrat (Allegedly) Pulls Fire Alarm

It’s always “allegedly” with these people:

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) allegedly pulled a fire alarm in the United States Capitol complex moments before the House was scheduled to vote on a bill preventing a government shutdown, according to the House Administration Committee.
U.S. Capitol Police and the House Administration Committee, which oversees House operations and Capitol security, are investigating. . . .
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) gave a long filibuster speech minutes later as Democrats attempted to delay the vote on a 45-day extension of government funding. The bill eventually passed by a large margin after the incident.
Rep. Jim Banks is among those calling for Bowman’s arrest, tweeting the possibility that Bowman’s actions could be part of a conspiracy among Democrats.

J6 protesters were sentenced to years in federal prison for “interrupting official proceedings,” and yet a Democrat thinks he can pull a fire alarm to stop a congressional vote. “Allegedly,” I hasten to add. Before the House overwhelmingly passed its bill, 335-91, Mitch McConnell had already announced that Senate Republicans would vote for the House version, rather than the garbage “compromise” bill that Chuck Schumer wanted the Senate to pass instead. So this looks like a win — even though my podcast partner John Hoge is ready for a shutdown at his contracting job (building space robots for NASA). We’ll see . . .

Category: Budget, Congress, Senate

An Unusual Consensus

Posted on | September 30, 2023 | Comments Off on An Unusual Consensus

Tyson Bagent — remember that name, because some people who know a lot about football agree that he’ll be the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears before this season is over.

Remember what I told you last month about Trey Lance?

In the 2021 NFL draft, five quarterbacks were first-round picks:

1. Trevor Lawrence (Clemson) — Jacksonville Jaguars
2. Zack Wilson (Brigham Young) — New York Jets
3. Trey Lawrence (North Dakota State) — S.F. 49ers
11. Justin Fields (Ohio State) — Chicago Bears
15. Mac Jones (Alabama) — New England Patriots

Being a lifelong Alabama fan, of course I was outraged by the implied disrespect to my boy Mac, who had just led the Crimson Tide to an undefeated season and a national championship. Mac had the most passing yards of any college quarterback that season, and set an NCAA record for highest percentage of passes completed (77.4).

Barely three weeks later, the 49ers traded Lance to Dallas in exchange for a fourth-round pick in next year’s draft, vindicating my judgment. As for Zack Wilson, New York Jets legend said he’s “seen enough” of him.

That brings us to the subject of Justin Fields. After three games, the Bears are 0-3, and the former Ohio State quarterback doesn’t look like he belongs in the NFL. Fields may actually be worse than Zack Wilson, which is as about as bad as it gets. Fields has completed 51 of 88 passes (58%) for 526 yards and three touchdowns, and has thrown four interceptions. Meanwhile, Mac Jones — despite playing behind a shoddy patchwork offensive line — has completed 81 of 125 passes (65%) for 748 and five TDs, with two interceptions. There is no question which one is the best quarterback, and it ain’t Justin Fields. Meanwhile . . .

Tyson Bagent, from Martinsburg, West Virginia, attended tiny Shepard University, a Division II school with barely 3,000 students. Six-foot-three and 210 pounds, Bagent broke all the records:

Bagent became the starting quarterback for the Shepherd Rams as a freshman and was named first team All-Mountain East Conference (MEC) after completing 253 of 387 pass attempts for 3,029 yards and 29 touchdowns. He was named second team All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) East, Shepherd’s new athletic conference, after passing for 4,349 yards and 36 touchdowns [as a sophomore]. . . .
In 2021, Bagent passed for 5,000 yards and 53 touchdowns and was named the PSAC East Offensive Player of the Year and won the Harlon Hill Trophy. Bagent also won the Hardman Award as the best amateur athlete in West Virginia. After the season, Bagent entered the NCAA transfer portal and visited West Virginia and Maryland, but ultimately opted to stay at Shepherd for his final season of eligibility.
On December 3, 2022, Bagent broke the record for touchdown passes across all NCAA divisions with 159, in Shepherd’s 48–13 win over IUP during their quarterfinal game. . . .
Bagent participated in the 2023 NFL Combine. He went undrafted but was signed by the Chicago Bears as an undrafted free agent in 2023. He made the Bears’ 53-man roster at the end of the preseason. He was named third on the Bears depth chart to begin the season behind starter Justin Fields and veteran Nathan Peterman.

The veteran backup QB Peterman is only there as an insurance policy, but Chicago fans fell in love with Tyson Bagent who, in three preseason games, completed 20 of 29 passes (69%) for 156 yards. And given how badly Fields has played, I’m not the only expert on football who thinks Bagent is going to be taking over as Chicago’s QB pretty soon:

“If Fields continues to think and not react, they got a guy named Bagent, their rookie that I predict you will be seeing him before the season’s over. Even though I wish Justin Fields the very best, but this kid Bagent — just like [San Francisco’s] Brock Purdy — he’s played a lot of college football at quarterback and he’s ready to be a pro quarterback.”

The source of that prediction? A guy named O.J. Simpson.

Early to the waiver wire. pic.twitter.com/RMxDzPsOcS

— O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) September 24, 2023

The two things that O.J. Simpson knows best are football, and how to get away with murder. So when he says Tyson Bagent’s going to be starting for the Bears? Well, if the prediction fits, Justin Fields quits.

Serves ’em right for not drafting Mac Jones.

Category: Football

‘Building a Deeply Inclusive Culture’

Posted on | September 30, 2023 | 2 Comments

This year, Forbes named 26-year-old Pava Lapere to its prestigious “30 Under 30” business leaders. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, LaPere co-founded a successful startup company, EcoMap Technologies, based in Baltimore. Lapere was recently praised by her colleagues:

“Pava was not only the visionary force behind EcoMap but was also a deeply compassionate and dedicated leader. Her untiring commitment to our company, to Baltimore, to amplifying the critical work of ecosystems across the country, and to building a deeply inclusive culture as a leader, friend, and partner set a standard . . .”

Perhaps you noticed the past tense verb, “was.” Because, did I mention — I’m pretty sure I did — that Lapere based her company in Baltimore, where the crime rate is worse than Chicago?

26-Year-Old Tech CEO Dead
Of Blunt Force Trauma —
Police Investigating Homicide

The cause of death was blunt force trauma and also, as it turned out, the kind of “inclusive culture” that makes Baltimore so dangerous.

The 26-year-old tech executive whose body was found on the rooftop of her Baltimore apartment building Monday died of strangulation and blunt force trauma, court documents say.
Pava LaPere was killed Friday [Sept. 22], but authorities didn’t discover her body for at least three days, according to a statement of charges filed in the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City obtained by CNN affiliate WJZ. Her body was found near a brick and a pair of red shoes believed to be LaPere’s, the documents say. The medical examiner’s office determined LaPere suffered trauma to the head, face and body, the documents say.
But even before the CEO was killed, the man suspected of killing her was being tracked by investigators because police believed he was responsible for a rape, arson and attempted murder days earlier, officials said.
The stunning revelations came hours after the suspect, Jason Dean Billingsley, was arrested Wednesday night — ending a frantic manhunt for the convicted sex offender who had a 30-year sentence but was released from prison last year. . . .
Baltimore police believe Billingsley is responsible for an arson, rape and attempted murder that happened September 19 in the 800 block of Edmondson Avenue — about a mile from where LaPere’s body was found days later.
Billingsley is accused of raping and attacking a woman before setting her and her boyfriend on fire, according to a statement of charges document filed in the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City and obtained by CNN affiliate WJZ.
“All indications are that this was not a random act of violence,” Baltimore Acting Police Commissioner Richard Worley said. “We have information to believe that the victims … were targeted by the suspect — that the suspect knew the victims and he went into that location for a criminal reason.”
Investigators started looking for Billingsley, police said.
Police believe three days after the September 19 crimes, LaPere was killed.
“It seems like she was probably murdered on Friday night, and she wasn’t recovered until they reported her missing … on Monday,” Worley said.
Authorities found her body Monday at an apartment building in the 300 block of West Franklin Street. Police said they don’t know of any connection between Billingsley and LaPere, the beloved CEO of EcoMap Technologies.
Billingsley was seen on video following LaPere on the street as she approached the building where she lived and worked, law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation told CNN.
The video shows the suspect following LaPere from a distance, but LaPere does not appear to be aware of his presence, according to the sources.
After LaPere entered the lobby where her company offices are located, she appeared to see Billingsley at the front door looking as though he had difficulty getting into the building — as if he had forgotten his keys, the sources said.
LaPere then opened the door for him, and security cameras in the lobby recorded them in conversation, according to the sources.
As LaPere walked toward the elevator, those security cameras show Billingsley following her.
The statement of charges said LaPere and Billingsley were seen on surveillance video getting into the elevator together.
LaPere was killed on the roof, the sources said, and Billingsley is recorded leaving the building about 40 minutes after following her into the elevator.
Billingsley is also seen on video leaving the stairwell of the building and entering the lobby, “scrambling for an exit,” according to the statement of charges. He was seen wiping his hand on his shorts before exiting the building, the court documents say.

So he was acting “as if he had forgotten his keys,” which convinced Johns Hopkins University graduate Pava Lapere to let the convicted sex offender — a fugitive suspect wanted on charges of rape, arson and attempted murder — into her building. Because it’s about a “building a deeply inclusive culture,” see? Virtue-signalling can get you killed.

Slain Baltimore tech CEO wanted
to disrupt industry’s ‘boys network’
Members of Baltimore’s tech scene say
Pava LaPere was committed to social justice.

“She wanted to disrupt the tech industry’s reigning power structure of white men and make way for more women and other people from disadvantaged groups. . . . She studied computer science for three years before switching her major to sociology because, she said, she wanted to use entrepreneurship to solve inequalities in society. . . . EcoMap has committed to a ’50/50%’ goal of employing a staff that is half women and half people of color.” And of course, she was a BLM supporter.

Standing against “systemic racism” is all fine and good, I suppose, up until the moment you die from blunt force trauma because a convicted sex offender, who was sentenced to 30 years, gets out of prison early under a “criminal justice reform” law that gave him “good time” credits:

Police said Billingsley was previously arrested in 2013, 2011, and 2009, and accused of multiple crimes, including sex offense, second-degree assault, and robbery charges.
Records reviewed by Insider show that Billingsley was sentenced in 2015 to 30 years in prison with 16 years suspended after he pleaded guilty to a first-degree sex offense. He is listed on the Maryland sex offender registry as a “tier 3” offender — the most serious classification — and those records show he was released from prison on October 5, 2022.
Bates said that Billingsley had a “violent crime” conviction in 2011 that included a charge of attempted rape and said Billingsley was paroled in October 2022. . . .
However, The Baltimore Banner reported that Maryland Parole Commission Chair David Blumberg said that Billingsley was actually denied parole and instead released on what was described as good-time credits.
A Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services spokesperson told The New York Times that Billingsley was not paroled but released “on mandatory supervision as required by statute.”

The Daily Mail interviewed the victim of Jason Billingsley’s 2013 crime, and you can read her account and decide for yourself if a mere nine years behind bars was sufficient in that case. Liberals have spent years proclaiming that America has a “mass incarceration” problem, demanding that we “defund the police” and stop putting criminals behind bars. Maryland being a Democrat-controlled state (Joe Biden got 65% of the vote in Maryland, including 87% in Baltimore), these kinds of “criminal justice” reforms have been avidly pursued. For example, employers in Maryland are not allowed “to inquire into an applicant’s criminal history” under the state’s so-called “ban-the-box” law.

Here’s the real kicker, though: After Billingsley committed rape, arson and attempted murder on Sept. 19 — three days before Pava Lapere was killed — police immediately identified him as the suspect, but didn’t warn the public that this violent felon was at large, because “this was not a random act of violence . . . the suspect knew the victims.” It was not until after Lapere’s murder that police determined Billingsley “had committed an act that seemed to be random,” which justified going public with the identity of the suspect. Does that make sense?

Think about “social justice,” and then think about Baltimore.

Do you have any idea how many convicted felons, suspects wanted for violent crimes, are at large in Baltimore? It’s not a small number. So if Baltimore police went public, issuing BOLO (“be on the lookout”) alerts every time they identified a suspect in a case, the local TV news would be running mug shots 24/7. And such publicity probably would not help encourage “building an inclusive culture,” IYKWIMAITYD.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!