December 20, 2005 by s.z.

People I Want to Smack - Pt. 4 Dr. Judith "I secretly lust after Alfred Kinsey" Reisman is so willfully stupid and annoying that smacking is too good for her -- and I believe that her latest WorldNetDaily column, "Are colleges training rapists?", proves it.  In this piece Dr. Judith notes a new DOJ study which shows that "college women are at higher risk for sexual assault than their non-college-bound peers," she mixes it with those four or so cases of female teachers having sex with their teenage students, and comes up with the theory that DOJ researchers are covering-up the fact that colleges are responsible for these crimes because they allow campus bookstores to sell copies of Playboy. But my description hardly does justice to the melange of hysteria and faulty logic that is Ms. Reisman's work.  Here are a few selected paragraphs from "Are Colleges Training Rapists" (you shouldn't expose yourself to the complete work if you aren't a trained professional), to give you an idea of what I'm talking about: Yes, more and more females – often teachers who are moms – are sexually abusing school children. Mama bear not only doesn't protect her little cubs from predators, she is increasingly violating them. Is it "just more reporting"? Perhaps "Our Miss Brooks" has always been sexually molesting the kiddies? Embrace the modern world of "denial." Faced with widespread moral collapse, secularize the words to "Silent Night" and pretend the "sexual revolution" never happened. Yes, women are abusing their students (who are also their children), and somehow the War on Christmas is responsible. [Y]oung co-eds are being sexually brutalized by "Joe College" – the ones they know – from fraternity abuses to "hooking up" for what passes for a "date" these days. Well, after all, the sexy stars do it on "Sex and the City" with no downside. I think that Dr. Judith's point is that if you are a slut like the women on "Sex on the City" you might know the man who rapes you; however, if you're a virgin, then the man will be a stranger to you, the way God intended. Lack of reporting undermines concern regarding what is causing sex crimes, as well as the toxic nature of these rapists becoming our national leaders. Of course, the government solution is not to mandate a moratorium on all pornography sales! Instead, the state would mandate sexually transmitted disease neonatal vaccines and make abortion so normal that girls will have little reason to report any sexual violation! Yes, that cervical cancer vaccine was just a plot on the part of the government to keep women from reporting rapes, um, because the goverment really hates all the paperwork involved in such reports. The 2005 recent college report totally dodged questions about erototoxins. Can you blame it? This normalized all the pornographic magazines sold in most college bookstores. Don't want to lose money on those sales of erototoxic media. Some "research" on rape in college. Some "higher" education. So our colleges are graduating male and female teachers who abuse the children in their care. How long will the U.S. Department Of Justice continue to hire researchers who will cover up the role of mainstream pornography as a major environmental toxin? To quote a line from one of my favorite MST episodes, "The answer, my friend, is blow it out your ass." 3:37:38 AM

People I Want to Smack - Pt. 3 It's Hindrocket again.  (BTW, keep in mind that he's a lawyer.) While the Democrats Celebrate Their Filibuster of the Patriot Act... ...the House Republican conference reminds us why the act is so important: If allowed to expire, the information-sharing provisions critical to breaking down the pre-9/11 “wall” between our law enforcement and intelligence personnel will be lost. Does Mr. Hindrocket really believe that it was a LAW that kept intelligence personnel from sharing information with law enforcement personnel?  (It was, of course, merely a DOJ policy which held that information obtained under the looser guidelines regulating the gathering of information on foreign intelligence matters shouldn't be passed to law enforcement, since this information couldn't be used to prosecute criminal cases, and might taint those cases.) Geez, all it takes to get rid of the "wall" is having the Attorney General instruct the FBI intelligence guys to share information with the law enforcement types, and to tell the head of the CIA to have his people share their info with the FBI.  What the Patriot Act really does is allow info gathered under those looser foreign intelligence standards to be used in criminal cases. The “wall” had deadly consequences. The 9/11 Commission Report contained an example that none of us should ever forget. According to the unanimous bipartisan report of that Commission, the “wall” thwarted the investigation of Khalid al-Midhdar and Nawaf alHazmi, two of the hijackers who flew an airplane into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. [...] A New York FBI agent working on the case expressed his frustration with these restrictions in the following e-mail: “Whatever has happened to this - someday someone will die - and wall or not - the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems.’” That's the wall (sometimes referred to as the "Jamie Gorelick wall") that the Democrats want to re-erect. Yeah, the all-powerful Democrats want to force Gonzales and Goss to order their people not to talk to each other.  If only we had a President who was above the law, then it wouldn't matter what the Democrats did, and he could use the military, intelligence community, and law enforcement to do whatever the hell he wanted, laws be damned! 2:43:32 AM

People I Want to Smack, Pt. 2 Our next nominee is John Hindrocket.  He is a lawyer, remember. A Really Obvious Point I haven't had time yet to study the legal arguments surrounding the NSA intercepts of international communications; Hugh Hewitt, for one, has addressed some of the technical issues. But there are a couple of fundamental points that, while obvious, haven't been made often enough. I also haven't had time yet to study the legal arguments surrounding the NSA intercepts, but I don't believe that the fundamental point that Hugh Hewitt is a partisan hack (and a wanker) has been made often enough. First, those who leap to the conclusion that the intercepts must be unconstitutional seem to assume that all searches require a warrant. That is not correct. The Fourth Amendment prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures. Warrantless searches are legal, and appropriately so, in a number of circumstances. I hadn't leapt to that conclusion.  I just thought that these interceptions of emails and phones calls by American citizens and residents were violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  But thanks for the info, John. Second, the issue of speed is critical. When we capture a cell phone or laptop being used by a terrorist, it is usually because we captured or killed the terrorist. The amount of time we have to exploit the capture is very short. [...] A delay of even a few days may render the information useless, as the terrorists will have realized that their colleague has been neutralized. And it is likely that the first hours or even minutes after we obtain a cell phone number or email address are most apt to yield helpful new information. So it is easy to see why going through the process needed to obtain a warrant from the FISA court would undermine the effectiveness of our anti-terror operations. I believe you, Mr. HIndrocket.  And while the above is one of the talking points being used by every wingnut in the world today (the other being the one about how being Commander-in-Chief means that the President can do whatever the hell he wants if he says that we're at war), I agree that this point can't be made enough.   But perhaps you could address the claims of David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University who says:  The secret spying program was said to be necessary because getting court approval under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is too time-consuming. That position is difficult to accept: Warrants requested under FISA can be approved in a matter of hours, and the statute allows the government in emergency situations to put a wiretap in place immediately,and then seek court approval later, within 72 hours. Why isn't "immediately" fast enough to catch terrorists, Mr. HIndrocket? And perhaps you might want to comment on this claim made by Mr. Cole: But the true reason behind the administration's position is less difficult to decode -- the desire to circumvent a key limitation of FISA. Despite the statute's breadth, it permits wire taps only on agents of foreign powers, and would not have permitted them on persons not directly connected to al-Qaida. Apparently seeking to cast a much wider net after 9/11, the president simply ignored the law and unilaterally -- and secretly -- authorized warrantless wiretaps on Americans. This point is so obvious that I even heard a law professor on the "O'Reilly Factor" who was defending the President make it.  So, why isn't the President just coming clean and saying, "I didn't like the law, so I bypassed it -- which I can do, because I'm the President."  But back to Mr. Hindrocket, who is, you will recall, a lawyer. I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that we have technology in place that allows us to begin intercepting phone calls within a matter of minutes after we learn of a phone number being used by an al Qaeda operative overseas. My guess is that there is a system into which our military can plug a new phone number, and begin receiving intercepts almost immediately. I hope so, anyway; and I'm guessing that the disclosure of this system to al Qaeda is one of the reasons why President Bush is so unhappy with the New York Times. And I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that the terrorists already thought we might have such technology ...if we actually do, which we might not.  So, I'm going to guess some more, and speculate that the real reason the President was unhappy with the NY Times was because it revealed the existence of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which tips off the terrorists to the fact that President was apparently violating the law.  And now they won't respect him anymore. Oh, and while we're guessing about stuff, what if we had something like Echelon, which, per Bruce Schneier, was "the world's largest information vacuum cleaner, sucking up a staggering amount of communications data -- satellite, microwave, fiber-optic, cellular, and everything else -- from all over the world: an estimated 3 billion communications per day. These communications are then processed through sophisticated data-mining technologies."  And what if the President wanted to use that surveillance capability in the U.S., but was afraid that the FISA courts wouldn't let him?  If that was the case, you could see why the President might be mad at the NY Times for blowing the whistle on his wiretapping authorizations, because even though this program had already been in the news (and wasn't even alluded to by the paper), it might alert the terrorists to our super-secret law-bypassing technology, which could be, um, bad. ONE MORE THING: Many people seem not to understand that the executive branch is of equal authority with the legislative and judicial branches. The President has Constitutional powers upon which Congress cannot impinge. Thus, if the President has the authority to direct the armed forces to intercept phone calls received by telephones used by terrorists in Afghanistan, as I think he surely does, that authority cannot be taken away by Congressional action. And one thing that people (some of them lawyers) seem not to understand is that the framers of the U.S. Constitution, who wanted to avoid the potential for abuses of power leading to tyranny, not only divided the government into three branches, but they also thought up these cool checks and balances to ensure that no one branch of government would become too powerful.  And one of those checks was that even the President has to obey the laws passed by Congress.   Is Mr. HIndrocket claiming that the framers intended the President to be so above the law that instead of telling Congress that he needed the authority to "direct the armed forces to intercept phone calls received by telephones used by terrorists in Afghanistan," and then trying to get the law changed, he should just ignore any laws which he felt impinged on his Super President powers? If so, I want to ask the ghosts of the framers to pay him a visit while he's asleep on Christmas Eve -- and smack him silly. 2:19:26 AM

People I Want to Smack - pt 1 Okay, I'm tired (I went Christmas shopping today and had to kill five clerks who didn't wish me a "Merry Christmas") and I think I'm coming down with something (possibly that avian flu), so I'm crankier than usual.  But damn it all, why do wingnuts have to be so stupid?!? Our first person who should be smacked is Don Wildmon.  He gets this honor by emailing me to complain that "NBC Demeans Christian Faith" (there's an online version of the email here). Please forward this e-mail message to your family and friends! NBC Demeans Christian Faith Writer for new series is practicing homosexual I'm sure my family and friends will be shocked, SHOCKED to learn that a practicing homosexual was allowed to write for a new television series.  However, the fact that the AFA thinks that the Christian faith is being demeaned by network TV is kind of old news. Dear s.z., NBC is promoting the network's mid-season replacement series "The Book of Daniel" with language that implies it is a serious drama about Christian people and Christian faith. The main character is Daniel Webster, a drug-addicted Episcopal priest whose wife depends heavily on her mid-day martinis. Webster regularly sees and talks with a very unconventional white-robed, bearded Jesus.  The Webster family is rounded out by a 23-year-old homosexual Republican son, a 16-year-old daughter who is a drug dealer, and a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter. At the office, his lesbian secretary is sleeping with his sister-in-law. The creator of the series told the NY Times that he wanted to explore religion by "looking through the eyes of a really faithful man who is flawed."  About the Webster family, he said, "They're just struggling to get through life," and "If you have everything together, what do you need God for?" So, yeah, I guess the show is meant to be a serious drama about the Christian faith.  Why does the AFA have a problem with that?  After all, when asked by the Pharisees why Jesus hung out with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus himself said that "those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."  So, if the AFA is claiming that NBC is demeaning religion by making a series about how religion helps imperfect people, then it seems to be going against the teachings of Jesus.  And if it is claiming that Christians are all perfect, then it's also going against the teachings of the Bible (as Paul said, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.") But what the AFA is really concerned about is not that the Episcopalians are being smeared by a TV program which features a priest with a drug problem (a problem he developed after the deaths of his twin sons, and that he attempts he overcome during the course of the series), but that the show is being partially written by a homosexual writer -- and that it features a homosexual Republican son. The hour-long limited drama series will debut January 6 with back-to-back episodes and will air on Friday nights. The writer for the series is a practicing homosexual. The homosexual son will be network prime-time's only regular male homosexual character in a drama series. And if you allow one to move in, there goes the whole drama neighborhood. Those at NBC responsible for this program consider it a good, religiously oriented show typical of Christian families. The fact that NBC is airing a program about one specific Christian family must mean that NBC thinks that all Christian families have some members who have gone astray -- and since the truth is that only most of them do, NBC is demeaning Christians.  But even worse, apparently NBC is claiming that all homosexuals are Republicans, and is thereby demeaning homosexuals.  I certainly plan to Email NBC Now!, like Don asked me to, and threaten to boycott the program's sponsors for this vile lie.  12:42:05 AM