[PJ] Now that the gun control advocates have had their fifteen minutes of fame, let’s start focusing on the real issues impacting the rise in school shootings since that infamous day in Columbine in 1999. Issue number one that no one in the mainstream media or government wants to acknowledge: fatherlessness. Specifically, the impact of fatherlessness on the boys who grew up to become school shooters.
Dr. Warren Farrell, author of the new book The Boy Crisis, explains:
Minimal or no father involvement, whether due to divorce, death, or imprisonment, is common to Adam Lanza, Elliott Rodgers, Dylan Roof and Stephen Paddock.
In the case of 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, he was adopted at birth. His adoptive dad died when Nikolas was much younger, and doubtless the challenges of this fatherlessness was compounded by the death of his adoptive mom three and a half months ago.
The rate of mass shootings has tripled since 2011. We blame guns, violence in the media, violence in video games, and poor family values. Each is a plausible player. But our daughters live in the same homes, with the same access to the same guns, video games, and media, and are raised with the same family values. Our daughters are not killing. Our sons are.
But boys with significant father involvement are not doing these shootings. Without dads as role models, boys’ testosterone is not well channeled. The boy experiences a sense of purposelessness, a lack of boundary enforcement, rudderlessness, and often withdraws into video games and video porn. At worst, when boys’ testosterone is not well-channeled by an involved dad, boys become among the world’s most destructive forces. When boys’ testosterone is well channeled by an involved dad, boys become among the world’s most constructive forces.
As Terry Brennan, co-founder of Leading Women for Shared Parenting, notes:
72 percent of adolescent murderers grew up without fathers; the same for 60 percent of all rapists.
70 percent of juveniles in state institutions grew up in single- or no-parent situations
The number of single-parent households is a good predictor of violent crime in a community, while poverty rate is not.
Yet, despite the growing number of experts, pundits and commentators drawing attention to the impact of fatherlessness on school and community safety, the post-attack discussion inevitably reverts back to gun control. Instead of spending so much as fifteen minutes on fatherlessness we are forced to endure the same salacious headlines, the same provocative tweets, the same tired old memes about the evils of guns as if somehow a cold piece of metal convinced yet another boy to become a mass-murderer. We ignore the lack of adequate mental health services, the failure of law enforcement to effectively intercede, and the sickening impact fatherlessness has on each one of these tragic cases. Why? Because it is easier to ban a hunk of metal than it is to right systemic cultural wrongs.
Comedian Michael Ian Black took a lot of flak for blaming the rise in school shootings on the idea that "boys are broken." Yet, he was correct in stating that,
The last 50 years redefined womanhood: women were taught they can be anything. No commensurate movement for men who are still generally locked into the same rigid, outdated model of masculinity and it’s killing us. If you want to hurt a man, the first thing you do is attack his masculinity.
What is the primary way to attack a boy’s masculinity? Strip him of his primary male role model: his father. Over the past 50 years, we have taught women to embrace single motherhood and to cut fathers out of their children’s lives through divorce. Now, thanks to the gun control echo-chamber, it will probably take another 50 years to right the wrongs we've done to our fathers and our boys.
#3
Our daughters are not killing. Our sons are.
It's not the GUNS! It's the SONS! We can end school shootings by aborting males except selected caged sperm providers.
#12
Fatherlessness linked to mass shootings? That's oversimplified. A father with strong family values in intact homes is certainly important. But suppose the father is an abusive alcoholic and slams the wife and kids around constantly? There is a father in the home but I'd say the kids might have trouble developing into healthy adults--not impossible but difficult.
I believe a commenter nailed the cause. Perhaps we could call it the NFL Effect.
[Deadline Hollywood]
"Unfortunately, Team USA is also loaded with social justice warriors whose over-inflated sense of self-importance has thus far only been exceeded by their failure to excel in their chosen events. Lindsey Vonn is a prime example. When the participants go out of their way to intentionally alienate half their potential viewing audience, what did NBC expect would happen to the ratings?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/19/2018 10:47 Comments ||
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#3
Ahhh, I didn't turn on the Olympics to watch crossing dressers.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
02/19/2018 10:52 Comments ||
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#4
The Olympics is a gigantic franchise that bleeds billions out of countries building monstrous facilities that the countries cannot use after the games are over.
It is an enormous scam. I hope they politically correct themselves out of existence. No wait, aren't they letting transgenders to compete as women...that should end this mess.
#7
To me, the only Olympic sports that are really sports are ones where there is an objective way to determine who won - where you don't get "style points' For anything else, it is just the opinion of the judges - who can be and have been bribed, or just pick their favorites.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/19/2018 16:59 Comments ||
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#8
With all of the fawning over the Fatboy regime in NORK and the wall to wall interviews with gay athletes that want to bash Trump, I'd say that NBC has lost at least 50% of the demographic that would watch the Olympics in the US, i.e., patriotic citizens rooting for their country's athletes and most sports lovers and all of the Red states.
[All Africa] On 16 October 2011, Kenyan troops crossed the border into Somalia. The official reason was that Kenya's national security was threatened by the Somalia-based Islamist militant group, Al-Shabaab. The terrorist group had in fact carried out a number of cross-border raids during the months preceding the operation.
There's still considerable disagreement about the reasons for Kenya's military action in October 2011.
More than six years after Nairobi made the drastic move, Kenyan troops are still in Somalia and Al-Shabaab is still considered a threat to Kenya. Numerous terrorist attacks have been carried out by the Somali group, including the deadly siege on the Westgate shopping mall in 2013.
There are a number of possible explanations as to why the Kenyan authorities made the decision to engage Al-Shabaab in Somalia. These range from trying to prop up the Kenyan army's image, to currying favour with the West, to making the north east of the country safer. Some strategies have proved more successful than others.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2018 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[4 views]
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#1
About as much as we have to show for Kenya sending us their Manchurian Candidate.
[AEI.org] Laugh if you want at the fat little men with bad haircuts who always seem to be in charge of the place, or the pants-wetting adulation at its immense choreographed rallies for those same Supreme Leaders, or even its robotic spokesmen’s unfathomable barking blather. Laugh at its late-Buck-Rogers-era architecture in its Potemkin capital, Pyongyang, or at any and all of its other uber-kitsch signature features that make the North Korean system so exquisitely mock-able to the outside world.
Laugh if you want, but the North Korean threat is as serious as a heart attack.
North Korea’s leadership is methodically preparing for a nuclear showdown against the United States and its allies in the Korean peninsula ‐ and it is planning to win that confrontation. If that ambition sounds like insane, over-the-top conceit from an insane, over-the-top dictatorship, look at the facts on the ground to date. Continues.
#2
"Songbun formalizes and perfects techniques of social atomization that Stalin and Mao only pioneered, transforming divide-and-rule into a science, and thus routinizing internal mutual mistrust and hatred to a degree perhaps never attained through deliberate government policy."
#3
I was at a nice restaurant in San Diego a month or so ago when three Asian guys walked into the place all sporting Kim Jung Un haircuts. Gotta watch out for that guy. He's a real trend setter.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/19/2018 11:06 Comments ||
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#4
Kim's or a High and Tight? Came in vogue in the 80s when they issued the new (now old) helmets, natural padding on the top cushioned the straps unless you were follicly challenged, then you used a foam insert.
[DAWN] EVER since the failed coup in 2016 in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire.... , the AKP-led government in Ankara has hardened its attitude towards all sorts of dissent. While governments have a duty to guard against any unconstitutional takeovers of the state, they must not use this as a cover to smother all opposition. Unfortunately, developments in Turkey are taking a very authoritarian turn. On Friday, six journalists were handed life sentences for "aiding plotters" of the coup. The sentences came even though in one of the cases Turkey’s constitutional court had ruled that the detention of the accused amounted to a violation of his rights. In the period since the coup, the Ottoman Turkish state has led a sweeping crackdown against all those even suspected of harbouring sympathies for exiled holy manFethullah Gülen ... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world... , whom the state accuses of orchestrating the failed putsch. Mr Gulen has denied any role. According to reports, more than 50,000 people have been tossed in the slammer Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! while around 150,000 have been sacked or suspended, including government servants, teachers and others.
But it is not just Gulenists ... the Turkish version of the Boogie Man, who set fire to the Turkish Reichsstag... that the Ottoman Turkish state is rounding up. Last month the authorities detained several doctors, members of the Ottoman Turkish Medical Association. The medics were rounded up for criticising Ankara’s incursion inside Syria to battle Kurdish militias active in the Arab country. President Erdogan termed the doctors "terrorist lovers" for daring to criticise the military operation. In a related development, over 300 people have been held for opposing Turkey’s Syrian incursion, including those who made comments on social media, accused of spreading "terror propaganda". All these arrests reflect that in Turkey, there is shrinking space for dissent. Without doubt Turkey faces many threats; the attempted coup was a very real challenge to the authority of an elected government. Moreover, a bloody war is raging next door in Syria, while a low-level Kurdish insurgency continues inside Turkey. But while the country may be located in a rough neighbourhood and is facing internal issues, all challenges must be confronted while safeguarding democratic rights, chiefly freedom of speech. Parties and individuals must be free to criticise the actions of the Ottoman Turkish state; if the government feels the criticism is misplaced, it must engage its critics in debate instead of jailing them or terming them ’traitors’. Turkey has had a long history of military intervention and its transition to democracy has been achieved after many sacrifices. Therefore, Ankara must guard democratic values and resist the allure of authoritarianism.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2018 00:00 ||
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[2 views]
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I had heard earlier that people were claiming 600 Russian dead and wounded. As one Russian writer pointed out, that is the functional equivalent of a rifle regiment. The air attack wasn't just one hit. It was a six hour+ mini campaign with NATO birds hitting their targets, returning to base to refuel and rearm and then heading back out again.
That a total of 15 (the number of Russian PMC dead I heard) were killed in a six hour operation tells me they may not have even been part of the operation. Russian PMCs are like ours: they are combat experienced, and some of them are probably former special ops. They're not stupid. They likely know better than to attack a fixed NATO position at night. If NATO had forward air controllers or even special forces in the area, they could direct aircraft to deadly effect, and there would have been little the PMCs could have done about it.
The coolest part of this story is the idea that a private business man has a private army complete with tanks and artillery. As the title suggests, this was Kelly's Heroes with a Russian accent.
It is important to note that the outlet where I read about the minicampaign, Business Insider, has inflated Russian war casualties before in Donetsk. I have even fallen for Russian military jargon, not believing at the time the central story that 200 were killed in an artillery attack. But then I don’t draw a salary to pay attention to my beat.
Russian military love to continue to use their jargon. So, when a translation comes out as two 300s, that means two wounded. But give the BI writers credit. They at least can do simple arithmetic.
We will continue to hear the 600 dead meme for some time to come, I think. Then the major wire services quietly will come out with corrections, the bats will be in the belfry and all will be right with the world.
As of now we keep hearing about lists of wounded housed in Moscow military hospitals, when those lists, the Russians insist, are spurious and chock full of made up names, as well as the names of Soviet writers. Some of those lists were compiled by a Ukrainian journalist (I forget the name) known to post bogus news about Russia.
[TheJamestownFoundation] Officials from the United States and Russia, together with non-governmental sources, all agree on the core narrative: On February 7, 2018, east of the Euphrates River, in the oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour, a battalion-size armed group loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, supported by armor and artillery, moved to take over a dysfunctional oil refinery occupied by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF); but this invading force was then decimated by US firepower “in self-defense.” The Euphrates River is more or less the so-called “de-confliction line,” agreed on by US and Russian military chiefs to separate Russian-supported pro-al-Assad forces and the US-backed SDF. On February 7, the pro-al-Assad forces were operating on the wrong (eastern) side of the river and threatened SDF fighters and coalition special forces embedded with them. The Russian Ministry of Defense insisted “no Russian servicemen were involved” and explained the incident as a mistaken move by local pro-al-Assad militias pursuing some Islamic State leftovers. The Russian authorities scolded the pro-al-Assad fighters for failing to notify and vet their move with Russian command in advance; but they simultaneously rebuked US forces for “seeking to grab valuable economic assets instead of fighting ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—the former name of the Islamic State group]” (Interfax, February 8).
Yet, as more evidence trickled in, the narrative presented in Moscow began to shift. According to Kommersant, a large force of several hundred men—pro-al-Assad militias reinforced by fighters from the notorious private military company (in Russian Chastnye Voennie Company—ChVK) “Vagner”—gathered to attack the refinery and possibly take over nearby oil and natural gas fields. The backbone of the force was made up of up to 600 ChVK Vagner Russian contractors armed with tanks and heavy guns, according to an unnamed military source. The attack was not authorized by the Russian command and was planned as a night raid—the Russian-led force opened fire and attempted to swiftly move in, believing the SDF would offer only token resistance and that US forces would not risk aerial attack as the Russians moved in. But the US promptly deployed overwhelming firepower before all of the ChVK Vagner contractors moved out into battle formation. They suffered heavy losses in both men and equipment. The unnamed Kommersant military source told the paper that about 11 Russians were dead (Kommersant, February 14).
Igor Strelkov (Girkin)—the former commander of Russia-backed rebels in Ukraine’s Donbas—was one of the first to post a report, based on information from “reliable sources,” about at least a hundred Russian ChVK Vagner fighters “slaughtered” by the US. Strelkov, like some other radical Russian nationalists, has opposed President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into the Syrian civil war, believing true Russian patriots must fight for Russian interests by defending truly Russian land, like in Donbas. Strelkov called for future potential volunteers “to think twice before enlisting with ChVK Vagner” (Newsru.com, February 9). This is not the first time Strelkov has published reports about heavy Russian casualties in Syria that have quoted former “colleagues from Donbas” who are now with ChVK Vagner (see EDM, October 12, 2017).
Different media outlets have reported widely disparate casualty estimates: Pro-Kremlin sources have tended to downplay the losses, declaring about 10 to 20 Russians dead and up to 50 wounded, while others report casualties in the hundreds. Official sources refuse comment, citing a lack of reliable information. But no one seems to refute the fact of an encounter gone badly wrong or that ChVK Vagner mercenaries were hit by US military fire, that many were killed or wounded, and that heavy equipment was destroyed (Kp.ru, February 13).
The ChVK Vagner force demonstrated rare incompetence by cavaliering into a night assault against a US-backed force, apparently ignorant of the fact that the US military has, for some time, preferred to fight in the dark to utilize night-vision superiority. The experience of fighting in Donbas or against the Syrian opposition and the Islamic State may have provided them with a false sense of security, underestimating what a full-scale US precision firepower attack could bring.
Russian military chiefs, meanwhile, may be somewhat pleased ChVK Vagner receive a licking. The private military company is reportedly financed and sponsored by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman from St. Petersburg known in the Kremlin court as “the cook” because he began his career catering for Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin reportedly has business interests in Syria and is apparently seeking to take over phosphate mining, oil and natural gas deposits. In promoting ChVK Vagner, “the cook” and his private army have reportedly increasingly come into conflict with the Ministry of Defense and Minister Sergei Shoigu (Novaya Gazeta, January 21).
The Russian military command almost certainly knew in advance of ChVK Vagner’s planned move east of the Euphrates. And in Moscow, most assume the “traitorous” Americans were also aware of the imminent attack and, thus, prepared a deadly ambush (Militarynews.ru, February 13). This narrative is supported by the fact that, just hours before the ChVK Vagner force was massacred, a 210-meter bridge over the Euphrates, built last September by Russian sappers (see EDM, September 28, 2017), was washed away by a sudden flash flood.The Russian military accuses the SDF and/or the US of deliberately opening the floodgates at a hydroelectric damn upriver to destroy the bridge. The Pentagon denies this allegation (Interfax, February 9). The collapsing bridge cut off the Vagner-led force on the left bank from supplies, reinforcements and the possibility of an organized retreat.
Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigian, the top US Air Force general in the Middle East, told journalists the encounter in Deir el-Zour “was not entirely unexpected”: For a week prior to the incident, the US had observed a slow buildup of hostile forces on the Euphrates bridgehead and reportedly contacted the Russian military. According to Harrigian, to repel the attack, multiple precision-fire munitions were released by ground artillery, F-15E fighter jets, MQ-9 drones, B-52 bombers, AC-130 gunships and AH-64 Apache helicopters (RBC, February 14). Some of these formidable assets could have been scrambled at short notice, but the B-52s, based presumably at Diego Garcia island, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, must have been in the air, loaded with ordinance, hours before ChVK Vagner made its move.
No one seems to be telling the whole truth about an encounter in which the US military seemingly knowingly planned and executed an attack on proxy Russian troops, while the Russian military command deliberately turned a blind eye. This dangerous combination of heavy casualties and muddled narratives could potentially escalate into something much worse than war by proxy.
#1
No one seems to be telling the whole truth about an encounter in which the US military seemingly knowingly planned and executed an attack on proxy Russian troops, while the Russian military command deliberately turned a blind eye.
Seems as though I read somewhere that "truth is always the first casualty of war."
"Planning and executing" one's defense is a fairly common doctrine among most army's of the world.
Perhaps it was intended as an embarrassment to the US Gov't. A bit of that going around lately. A few US personnel killed, a few more wounded and captured. A prisoner snatch? Thankfully a failed effort, but potentially not the last. The embarrassment now appears to be on the other foot.
#4
I'd start with the facts first given by Centcom. 500+ attack for with heavy armor/artillery. Originally listed as pro-Assad militia and mercenaries providing the heavy firepower. 100+ dead, up to 200 wounded. Majority, if not vast majority, of the dead and wounded likely Vagner mercs since the Air Force will first go after the armor.
As for the B-52, there is a heavy bomber most of the time over Iraq/Syria and Afghanistan to provide a deep magazine of precision bombs, not to mention constant patrols of dozens of Reapers and fighter bombers daily. The battle was long enough (3+ hours mentioned), that fighter-bombers could have been scrambled Al Udeid. Is the Air Force still flying A-10s and Reapers from out of Incirlik or only tankers since Erdogan's Reichstag fire moment?
#5
The Russian ministry of foreign affairs continues to insist the total Russian dead is at five. The Russian business news outlet, Kommersant said the total Russian dead is at 15.
I noticed Centcom did not mention tanks. No reporting anywhere I can find about tank losses. You'd think if Centcom can claim 100+ dead, they can surely claim tanks as well.
Russians ain't stupid, as I said. If they knew they were about to become dogmeat, they'd get the hell out of Dodge.
[Gatestone] One aspect of radical Islamist aggression that is overlooked ‐ or purposely ignored ‐ by Western liberals is that non-Muslim women tend to be its greatest victims. According to a recent Open Doors study, "Christian women are among the most violated in the world, in maybe a way that we haven't seen before." The study revealed that six women are raped every day simply for being Christian.
The reason for this is simple. As harsh as Islamic law (sharia) is for men, it is even more so for women. The Koran gives men the authority to beat women for disobedience (4:34), that the testimony of two women equals that of one man (2:282); most of hell's population consists of women; and women are likened to donkeys and dogs for distracting men from and annulling their prayer.
Such injustice for women is confirmed by a newly released report for the UK government on the application of sharia law in England and Wales ‐ a report that reveals the "systemic discrimination against women."
#1
Waiting for the #metoo movement to hold these sub-humans accountable. .... Still waiting..... all I hear is crickets.
When these waste of humanity prove themselves to indeed be sub-human, we should have no compunction about terminating with extreme prejudice by the most expedient means possible.
#2
I think it all part of the Leninist agenda to make the state the religion. If the state is the religion, you have no need for Christianity. But you have to marginalize it first.
[PJMedia] "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." Hosea 7:8
It was after a school shooting near Spokane last September that Spokane Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich addressed a clutch of reporters:
When I was in high school, every one of those rigs in the high school parking lot had a gun in the gun rack. Why? We went hunting on the way home. None of those guns ever walked into a school, none of those guns ever shot anybody... Did the gun change or did you as a society change? I'll give you odds it was you as a society. Because you started glorifying cultures of violence. You glorified the gang culture, you glorified games that actually gave you points for raping and killing people. The gun didn't change, we changed.
It seems clear to me the sheriff was speaking about rap music with its hateful, violent and misogynistic lyrics, and video games like Grand Theft Auto, where you can have sex with a prostitute then strangle her or pull an innocent person out of a car, beat him, then steal his vehicle.
I am a First Amendment purist and don't want to see expression censored in any way. And I don't argue that there's a straight line between any specific cultural creation and bad acts. But surely, a culture in which those in authority approve of and argue for things like gangsta rap and GTA ‐ and indeed for the use of violence to silence speech that offends them ‐ well, such a culture becomes a machine for transforming madness into murder.
It reminds me of some wisdom from another two sheriffs, the fictional sheriffs from the Coen Brothers movie of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men discussing the mindless violence that has taken over society.
"Once you stop hearing 'sir' and 'ma'am' the rest is soon to follow," says one.
"It's the tide, the dismal tide," says the other. "It's not the one thing."
The left wants to defend gangstas and "transgressive" art and antifa thugs ‐ but when the shooting starts, they blame the guns.
The left wants to get rid of feminine modesty and masculine protectiveness and social restrictions on sex ‐ but when the abuse and rape and harassment rise to the surface, they start whining about toxic manhood. Perhaps they should have listened to the Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton, who wrote about the difference between reforming society and deforming it ‐ a passage that was neatly paraphrased by John F. Kennedy: "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."
Now the left wants to legitimize disrespect for the flag and for Christianity. They want to ignore the rule of law at the border and silence protests against Islamic ideas that are antithetical to every good thing the west stands for. They should look to Europe where all that's been accomplished. And now, when European women are molested in the public square, the gormless authorities advise them to behave more modestly lest immigrants get the wrong idea. When Islamic knives come out and Islamic bombs go off, the police rush to harass ‐ who? Those who question the dictates of the Koran.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[PJ] Now that the gun control advocates have had their fifteen minutes of fame, let’s start focusing on the real issues impacting the rise in school shootings since that infamous day in Columbine in 1999. Issue number one that no one in the mainstream media or government wants to acknowledge: fatherlessness. Specifically, the impact of fatherlessness on the boys who grew up to become school shooters.
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...
... the Turkish version of the Boogie Man, who set fire to the Turkish Reichsstag...
