Tuesday Links

Flopping Aces has some disturbing news: As an Oncologist I Am Seeing People With Stable Cancer Rapidly Progress After Being Forced to Have a Booster

[A letter] by Dr Angus Dalgleish

Stately McDaniel Manor, with a post I should have included last week - School Attacks: The High Cost Of Virtue Signaling

As you’ll find, gentle readers, should you review the School Attacks series, educators tend to be leftist, and this is particularly so in colleges, where they tend to be flaming, true believing leftists. They’ll argue allowing teachers to carry guns will result in terrible carnage. Teachers carrying guns somehow destroys a pristine educational environment. It’s not a teacher’s job to be police officers, and they’d have to be trained to be police officers to carry guns. Teachers have to focus every second of their efforts on teaching, not on shooting attackers.

The Other McCain - Idaho Breakthrough: A Serial Killer?

Wait just a minute here — what day of the week was Aug. 13, 2021? It was a Friday. Just a coincidence, perhaps, but then you see that the Idaho victims were also killed on the 13th, and while it may be a bit of a stretch to connect these crimes, which happened 400 miles and 15 months apart, investigators don’t seem to have any other leads, so maybe this is more than a coincidence. Because one of the Oregon victims survived the attack, we know that the killer wore a mask, but they don’t say what kind of mask. Was it a hockey mask? Like Jason in Friday the 13th?

Massad Ayoob - HITTING A MILLION. A 7 minute video worth a look.

Yours truly is one of several content providers on the Wilson Combat channel on YouTube. I recently learned that one of mine there had surpassed a million views.

Meep at STUMP - ESG and ERISA: Pity the Poor Tort Lawyers Their Lost Business as Biden Gives a Safe Harbor For Now

FTX had stellar ESG ratings right before implosion

Oh, look who had the best ESG ratings, including the one I like, which is governance:
FTX Bankruptcy Exposes ESG’s Flaws

Again from The Other McCain - ‘Blood On Your Hands’? Is Anyone Really Endangered by Twitter ‘Amnesty’?

The problem in the United States is almost the diametrical opposite situation, i.e., critics of the regime have been banned, because Twitter staff were working with the Democratic Party to effectively prohibit dissent.

Granite Grok - A Quick Word about The Democrat Party’s Fascism

No, the American Federal Government does not own or control the means of production, but they have oligarchs in Energy, Public Health, and increasingly in other sectors of the economy. And the accumulation of our National debt creates an excuse for a massive confiscation of private property (to save the nation or something). To do that, they will need a police state mentality or its equivalent, and such despotisms are inherently fascist.

Armed Homeowner Captures Fugitive for Police

That is what this headline should say, but even in Houston, "Professional Journalists" don't like the idea of armed homeowners. UPDATE: Investigators capture man after on-campus chase near Westside High School in Macon: Investigators captured the suspect after an hours-long search | KHOU

A guy was spotted near a high school with a firearm. The school went into lockdown, and cops swarmed the area.

The man went to a nearby home and asked the homeowner to let him hide there. The homeowner refused, which started an argument between the two. The homeowner shot at the suspect's feet, causing him to drop the rifle that he had been carrying during his escape from police. The suspect ran away from the scene. No one was hurt.

After a while he went back to that home to hide.

According to Bibb County Sheriff David Davis, the suspect went back to the house where he had previously tried to hide. The homeowner there was able to capture the suspect, allowing investigators to make the arrest.

So even in Texas we have media bias against homeowners. Marginal, but still there. They did report on the fact that the homeowner captured this miscreant, but they couldn't seem to get the facts right in the headline.

I have no idea why a story from the 16th is only now making it into my news search. Probably the internet (in the form of Bing, which provides services to DuckDuckGo) doesn't want you to know about stories like this.

Self-defense is a human-right, and occasionally an armed citizen helps out the police. I have the feeling that it happens a lot more often than the media would have us believe.

The Illusion of Safety

You may "feel safe," but that doesn't mean you actually are safe. Two Markham home invasion victims speak out after attack | CTV News

So a family was the victim of an armed home invasion. Armed intruders broke open a glass door at the back of the house and entered.

Two men came to his room, one armed with a gun and another with a hatchet.

The other victim who spoke to CTV News Toronto said a third man came to his room, taking everything from his shoes to his headphones.

Cops were able to shoot two and arrest two because they were involved in multiple home invasions.

Then there is the illusion of safety.

They have been literally picking up the pieces, but—like their glass door—they say the illusion of safety has been broken. 

They are 'adding additional security' measures, though they don't say what that could be in Canada.

You think you are secure, but have you studied your security? Have you installed anything to make it hard to kick in your front door or back door? (It is called Door Armor.) If someone throws a brick through your window, what would you do to keep them out? Do you have any more than an illusion of security?

And as I have said, many times, you are not protected by your zip code.

How Is That Bail Reform Working Out?

Not too well if you go by the number of victims. #50: Twice-convicted gun offender shot a random driver while on felony bail, prosecutors say

Prosecutors say a man who was on bail for selling nearly $3,500 worth of cocaine to an undercover cop shot a motorist who was driving to work near his home on November 3.

Giovanni Montes, 24, is the 50th person accused of killing or shooting—or attempting to kill or shoot—someone in Chicago while awaiting trial for a felony this year. The alleged crimes involved at least 88 victims, 22 of whom died.

The next story brings the victims to 89 and the deceased to 23. I suppose the Left is happy that he didn't use a gun. #51: Chicago drug dealer, free on felony bail, beat a customer to death in a vacant lot for paying him with fake money, prosecutors say - CWB Chicago

On the northwest corner of Chicago and Ridgeway avenues in Humboldt Park sits a vacant lot. A Chicago Police Department surveillance camera hangs from a light pole next to a small hand-painted billboard that declares the corner a “safety zone” with no gambling, drugs, or guns allowed.

In that vacant lot around 5:40 p.m. on November 9, Jacquail Jones used a brick or rock to beat 52-year-old Michael Foley to death because Foley gave him fake money in a drug deal, prosecutors said Friday.

All of this is due to the position of the Left that keeping violent offenders in jail is unfair.

As for this pillar of the community...

After the beating, Jones returned to the convenience store, bought a bag of chips, and walked away, prosecutors said.

Civilization was nice while it lasted.

The History FTX

I find this whole thing fascinating. How the "smartest guys in the room" got taken to the cleaners. FTX Post Mortem Part 2 Of 3: How Did We Get Here?

And we know that they are the smartest guys in the room, because they almost never miss a chance to tell us that. Well, they have been suspiciously quiet on the subject since FTX imploded. I'm sure that they will start telling us that again as soon as they think that we've forgotten about FTX and Steve Bankman-Fried (SBF).

The history goes back all the way to 2021. Well, 2021 is when it gets interesting.

What if Alameda’s goal wasn’t to make money, but to lose money to other traders in a perverse growth hack used to attract the next round of “smart money” investors?

After all, at best Alameda had been making a few hundred million from trading over the course of its existence and likely much less than that. As spreads closed with more market makers flooding into the asset class it’s much easier to take money from Sequoia and Softbank than it is to make money trading.

Running an unprofitable casino is a terrible business, but selling an unprofitable casino that looks extremely busy to a private investor is a fantastic business.

There is so much in that article about SBF, about the corporate structure of Alameda and FTX, and the overlap between the two, about loans and the quest for venture capital and more. There is even a bit about how the son of two compliance lawyers, one of whom specializes in tax havens, engineered a system where he apparently believed that he could legally access client funds. You should click thru and read the entire thing.

And though Zero Hedge says that SBF was apparently using FTX as his personal slush fund, that really doesn't explain the 6 to 10 billion in missing assets. Bad management does, however.

here is no way that Alameda could have sold off all of those liquidated customer positions as the token collapsed. This type of liquidation transaction is known as “toxic flow” and is a surefire way to bankrupt a market maker.

If FTX’s famously specialized liquidation engine simply meant that customer positions were shunted onto the Alameda balance sheet to be cleared at a later date, then the amount of toxic flow from junk tokens in the last year would build up quickly.

This seems to be the only way the size of the hole makes any sense.

I find this fascinating in the same way I found the implosion of Bernie Madoff's empire engrossing. "The smartest guys in the room" (they will tell you that!) fell for one of the oldest cons in finance. I'm not sure whether or not you can call FTX a Ponzi Scheme, but it isn't far removed. It was certainly a house of cards, and not the Sure Thing™ that the venture capitalists, the Pundits were telling us it was.

The week before Thanksgiving Twitter was reminding everyone what Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money said about SBF back in June. And some people were bring up other statements by Cramer on other topics.

And then there are the political questions. Like I said, click thru.

My Dark Symphony

After Roy Khan retired from Kamelot and music, due to "burn out" and health/family issues, it was wondered if he would return. In 2018 it was announced he would be reuniting with his 1990s band, Conception.

I think I have mentioned that I love Roy Khan's singing voice.

This is "My Dark Symphony" by Conception from their 2018 EP My Dark Symphony.

Good Guys 4, Bad Guys 0

They thought it would be a good idea to invade an occupied home in Georgia. Gresham Road shooting started as home invasion, 1 dead: Police | 11alive.

Actually 4 is an under-count of the bad guys, but police are only giving info and the ones who were shot. More on this in a bit.

Detectives at the scene and hospital began questioning those involved, which authorities said revealed that the four men were were attempting to break into a home. While they were trying to get inside, police said that the group exchanged shots with someone who lived there.

At this time, police said the shooting "appears justified" and no charges are expected to be filed against the the person who fired the shot.

That is because Georgia has not morphed into a copy of New Jersey.

As for the total number of people involved...

"Several other parties" who were also allegedly involved were detained at the scene with the help of SWAT officers, who police said were already in the area.

Self-defense is a human-right.

F*c*book is Evil, and So are the Tax Programs Sending It Data

This is insane, and it should be illegal. "This Is Appalling": Major Tax Filing Services Have Been Sending Financial Information To Facebook | ZeroHedge

The services include TaxAct, H&R Block, and TaxSlayer.

The data includes names, email addresses, income, filing status, refund amounts and college scholarship information - which is sent to Facebook regardless of whether a person even has a Facebook account - or with other platforms owned by Meta. The company can then be used to fine tune advertising algorithms.

Intuit’s TurboTax "did not send financial information to Meta but rather usernames and the last time a device signed in."

Harvard Law School lecturer and tax law specialist Mandi Matlock said the findings showed that taxpayers have been "providing some of the most sensitive information that they own, and it’s being exploited."

"This is appalling," she added. "It truly is."

That info is being provided to F*c*book, which is using it for advertising.

Privacy is such a 20th Century concept. (Hat tip to Gates of Vienna.)

And They Wonder Why Crime Is Going Up

I could have hoped that Texas was immune to some of this insanity, but big cities are big cities everywhere. Study: 56 Percent of Violent Crime Suspects Released in Dallas - Texas Scorecard

And while the headline is bad enough, the subtitle tells even more:

“Bail reform” led to 34 percent of murder suspects arrested in 2021 being released on bail or their own recognizance.

These statistcs come from criminologist Michael Smith of the University of Texas at San Antonio. Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia is responsible for that study. The statistics published as a part of the study include "about 75 percent of offenders charged with weapons law violations, about two-thirds of those arrested for aggravated assault, and 34 percent of those arrested for murder."

Click thru for more, including info about the soft-on-crime DA, a court suit by the ACLU, and a statement by the Sheriff. Oh, and some backpedaling by the DA once a light was shined on what he was doing to destroy law and order.

This is all happening because the Left has decided (with help from Soros-funded non-prosecuting attorney's, and others) that keeping violent offenders in jail is unfair.

The "How Dare You Live Without Me" Attitude Never Works

Some people just don't under stand the "ex" part of ex-girlfriend. Woman charged with setting ex’s Southwest Bexar County home on fire after burglarizing it, records show

In a Facebook post, BCSO said Soto was upset with the man because a woman, who turned out to be his relative, answered his phone.

And so because of that, she broke in and set his house on fire.

A witness saw Soto taking items from her ex-boyfriend’s home in Southwest Bexar County on Sunday and putting them in her gray Kia Optima, charging documents state.

She is charged with "arson of a habitation/place of assembly and burglary of a habitation."

Does this count as "crazy people are dangerous?"

Speaking of Crypto... more on FTX

So why haven't any charges been leveled? Sam Bankman-Fried ran FTX like 'personal fiefdom' as firm spent $300M on luxury real estate

FTX’s bankruptcy team detailed the wild spending under 30-year-old Bankman-Fried in a closely watched court hearing on Tuesday — revealing rampant mismanagement by top executives until the platform collapsed with more than $1 billion in client funds missing.

Attorneys said the $300 million spent on real estate was mostly used to buy mansions and beachfront vacation properties for Bankman-Fried and other senior FTX executives.

There is more, and you should read the whole thing, including a snarky remark by an attorney about the Emperor having no clothes.

The Media Notices that Black Americans Own Guns

The reporter in this case can't seem to decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Gun ownership among Black Americans rising nationwide

Tuesday night is Ladies’ Night for the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers Gun Club in Atlanta.

Karine Alleyn joined in 2020 and now she represents one of the fastest growing groups of new gun owners — Black women.

“I feel like I’ve accomplished something,” said Alleyn.

Overall it is a fairly good piece of journalism. Aside from the 9th Cavalry reference, they also talk to Phillip Smith, the president of the National African American Gun Association. And they provide links to the organizations' websites.

Phillip Smith, said membership jumped by more than 10,000 in 2020 alone and that was a record for the organization.

Now, the organization has 40,000 members nationwide.

They do have to point out how a lot of people think guns are bad and guns cause crime, but they do give a chance for one of the women they interviewed at ladies' night a chance to address the issue. (Hat tip to Keep and Bear Arms.)

“None of the other riders intervened to stop the attempted kidnapping”

That quote captures exactly my view of NYC. No one will step out of their way for anyone. Teens save brother, 10, from kidnapping on Midtown train

A creep tries to kidnap a 10-year-old kid off the subway in NYC. His 15-year-old brother and his 16-year-old sister are the only two who come to his defense. No one tries to stop this guy from escaping. No one does a damn thing.

None of the other riders intervened to stop the attempted kidnapping, the children’s mother said.

Because individual action and individual responsibility has been beaten out of the people in the Blue Cities. You must rely on the State for everything. You must not get involved. Not even to save a 10-year-old from a kidnapper.

As several people in comments to that article asked, where were the cops? Didn't both Adams and Hochul say they were going to put more cops on the subway? Although Hochul did say she didn't know why people thought crime was such a big deal. And the DAs won't prosecute anyone anyway.

Western civilization was nice while it lasted.

I'm Shocked - Shocked! - to Think There May Be Corruption in Politics

OK, so I'm not that shocked that there are shady dealings in NYC. Sliwa urges city probe of Adams links to felons, suspect hires

Possible free meals. Dealing with convicted felons. Hiring "unindicted co-conspirators." Sounds like standard operating procedures for politics in Chicago, though this is NYC.

Eric Adams’ Republican rival in the election for City Hall last year, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, is calling on the Department of Investigation to probe the mayor’s dealings with convicted felons and his hiring of cronies with checkered pasts or questionable qualifications for top government posts.

“It’s one outrage after another outrage,” Sliwa said in a letter sent to DOI.

Sliwa also raises questions about whether the mayor is getting free meals from a restaurant, a practice that cops are forbidden to do.

None of this would surprise me, or the other things he brings up. Corruption in politics? Isn't that like a dog-bites-man kind of story. Hardly news where I'm from.

Saturday Roundup of Link Roundups - 26 November

Wombat-socho at The Other McCain is up first with In The Mailbox: 11.23.22 (Afternoon Edition)

The Lid: Dummy Wokesters Want Diverse Dummies
Legal Insurrection: Biden Administration Slammed for Signing Away $1 Billion in Climate Reparations

The Right Way - Top of the News

How Caroline Ellison Found Herself at the Center of the FTX Crypto Collapse - American Power
The Club Q shooting and the religion of the left - American Thinker

EBL - And now another shooting in a Virginia Walmart...Update: The Shooter Identified (he's probably not MAGA)

Update: TOM: Yet Another Inconvenient Mass Murder Destined for the Media’s Memory Hole
Instapundit: PJ Media: Will the left ever stop blaming the right for mass shootings? 

Don Surber - Highlights of the News

ITEM 3: Just the News reported, "Enough Chinese-made recreational drones have been spotted in restricted airspace in the Washington, D.C. area to raise foreign espionage concerns among U.S. government agencies and lawmakers alike.

The Daley Gator - Opinions and news links

Bearing Arms- Media gets the vapors over new Sig rifle
Blazing Cat Fur- Those PETA folks are freaky…..

Wombat-socho again - In The Mailbox: 11.23.22 (Evening Edition)

Transterrestrial Musings: Germany’s Green-Energy Delusions, also, Is There A Naval Architect In The House?
Victory Girls: Mayorkas: Resignation May Come To Fruition

Battleswarm Blog - LinkSwarm for November 25, 2022

“Texas Democrats Blame Lackluster Midterm on 2021 Election Reform, Redistricting, and Poor Border Messaging.” Note that the word “policies” appears nowhere in the article…

Flopping Aces - The Week in Radical Leftism, 11/25/2022

11/18 – Michelle Obama Is So Stunning And Brave, You Guys
11/19 – Fake Hate: San Diego Vegan Food Truck Owner Charged With Arson, Insurance Fraud

And again from Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 11.25.22

Gab News: There Is No Freedom Of Speech Without Freedom Of Reach
Rumor Control: The Soft Opening Of Rumor Control

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 11/25/2022

Tiantian Kullander, a former Morgan Stanley trader who co-founded digital-asset trading platform Amber Group, has died. He was only 30 years old.

J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ - The Morning Report — 11/23/22

"Given the way things have been going in Biden’s America these days, we’re not sure we can entirely rule out the latter possibility."
As Shortages Persist Under Biden, It’s Time To Ask: Is This On Purpose?

Maggie's Farm - Wednesday morning links

Is this like government-controlled credit cards? Or what?
 Elon Musk Teaches Leftwing Activists That Actions Have Consequences

Anonymous Conservative - News Briefs – 11/23/2022

Herschel Walker, Raphael Warnock within margin of error in Georgia’s Senate runoff.
Majority of American voters rightly concerned about vote fraud.

I leave you with Wednesday gifdump from Wirecutter, Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #792 from 90 Miles from Tyranny, and This Wednesday is for Skipisms ~ 2 from Woodsterman.

Expecting "The System" to Protect You is a Losing Bet

The System™ doesn't care about domestic violence until it ends in murder or attempted murder. Felon broke into ex-girlfriend’s Washington Park home and shot her after breakup, prosecutors say

Chicago police had responded to 10 domestic calls involving 47-year-old Tarnche Hill and his former girlfriend, prosecutors said. No arrests were made, even though the 28-year-old woman repeatedly reported that Hull attacked her.

Now that he shot her, maybe they will do something about it. But it is in Chicago/Cook County, so they might ignore the attempted murder. They have ignored actual murder, so it wouldn't surprise me.

Light It Up

Orianthi is an Australian guitar player, who probably had her first big break when she played on the 2nd stage at the 2007 edition of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival, which was held in Illinois that year. The Wiki (take it with a grain of salt) says her break came when she appeared at the 2009 Grammy Awards show, as guitarist for Carrie Underwood. Though you could say that meeting Carlos Santana, and how he helped her to get signed with Geffen Records in 2006 was what really mattered.

She is quite a guitar player, and not a bad vocalist.

She published a new album in October. Today's song was released as single from the album in July.

This is "Light It Up" by Orianthi from her new album Rock Candy.

Friday Links - 25 November

The Other McCain is up first with Disney Not Gay Enough Yet? New Plan: Get (More) Woke, Go (More) Broke

When it was announced that Disney CEO Bob Chapek had been ousted in favor of a return to former CEO Bob Iger, a lot of conservatives started high-fiving on Twitter, erroneously assuming that this must signal some kind of admission by Disney that their left-wing cultural war agenda had failed as a business model.

Granite Grok - Exposing the Fraud: They Make Climate “Fudge” Over at NOAA, Too!

Science used to be about comparing reality to your theory. These days it is about reshaping the perception of reality until it proves your theory. Global Warming (dba: climate change) is an excellent example. With the earth refusing to satisfy any of their predictions, the experts have taken to tampering with data.

The College Fix - Jury awards $645,837 to Auburn professor demoted for criticizing lax degree standards

Stern had sued the university for retaliating against him when he criticized the preservation of an easy major for the sake of athletics.

Wombat-socho at the Other McCain - Continuity & Tradition

So it pleases me to see that the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page has been a bastion of conservatism* for as long as I can remember, has rejected the whining of sundry annoying leftists and once again reprinted a pair of classic editorials by former editor Vermont Royster: The Desolate Wilderness, as well as And The Fair Land.

The Gateway Pundit - Unbelievable: Researcher Claims Anti-vaxx Groups’ Fear Mongering and Scare Tactics Cause Vaccine-Related Adverse Events Like Blood Clots and Heart Attacks

You can’t make this up.

Just when you thought the Covid-deranged establishment medical community couldn’t lose any more credibility, Raymond D. Palmer, a self-identified mRNA alchemist from Western Australia, admitted that there are serious risks associated with Covid-19 vaccinations, but he blamed the anti-vaxxers for it.

Again from The Other McCain - Mystery Solved? Did This CANADIAN Get @rsmccain Banned From Twitter?

My categorical hatred of Canada is notorious, of course, and I probably should have known that those fiendish Canadian scum had spent years plotting their revenge against me, but now I feel like Don Corleone after he figured out who was behind Sonny’s murder: “I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along.” And my Barzini is Scaachi Koul.

Self-defense is Legal in Kansas

Two months to make that decision isn't bad, as the pace the legal system can move. Leavenworth investigation rules deadly shooting self defense

According to the county attorney’s office, the homeowner woke up when his dog started barking. The man told investigators he then heard the door of his vehicle opening and closing. When he looked out the window, the man said he did not recognize the man outside.

In a news release from the county attorney’s office, the homeowner later told officers he grabbed his pistol and headed toward his front door. Before he reached the door, someone outside started hitting and kicking the door. The homeowner told investigators the door started bowing. Then a man outside started yelling and cussing telling the homeowner to open the door.

He fired 3 times through the door and called 911. There is security video from the house across the street.

So 2 months, from September 22nd, isn't moving at light speed, but it isn't too bad either. Though I suppose I would have made such a decision after viewing the video. Of course I'm not a lawyer, and it doesn't say if the district attorney in question was up for reelection this year.

In any event, it seems to have been decided that self-defense is your legal right in Leavenworth, and it remains a human-right as well.