Author Archives: Dana Pico

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The Las Vegas Raiders Suck!

View from my seat, Section 231, Row 19, Seat 9

My older daughter, as a present for her favorite dad, bought tickets for us to watch the Las Vegas Raiders play the Cincinnati Bengals yesterday. In several tweets, I’ve referred to my favorite team since I was first aware of their existence, back when Daryle Lamonica was still throwing bombs, as the Oakland — never Las Vegas! — Raiders.

Now, I have to change that: they are indeed nothing like the silver-and-black from their glory days in the 1970s and 80s, the days of Art Shell and Gene Upshaw anchoring the best offensive line in football, the days of Ted Hendricks and Jack Tatum and Otis Sistrunk terrorizing offenses. They are truly the Las Vegas Raiders now, the Raiders who just plain quit on the field yesterday.

Raiders fire three coaches after losing fifth straight game

by Joe Lago | Monday, November 4, 2024

Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce said the team would “look at everything” after falling to 2-7 with its fifth straight loss in a 41-24 road defeat to the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, News.Az reports citing The Biglead.

41-24 makes it sound as though the game was actually competitive; it wasn’t. Jack Jones scored on an interception returned for a 29-yard touchdown and Brock Bowers on a garbage time touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

The Raiders had seen enough of offensive coordinator Luke Getsy’s play calling. Late Sunday night, they fired Getsy after just nine games and also let go offensive line coach James Cregg and quarterbacks coach Rich Scangarello.

That was deserved, because the offense just plain sucked.

I was full of hope, in that the Raiders first drive resulted in a touchdown. Two touchdowns, actually, as the first one was overturned on replay, but scored again from the one yard line.

A replacement for Getsy wasn’t announced, but passing game coordinator Scott Turner, son of longtime NFL offensive coordinator and former Raiders head coach Norv Turner, is expected to be the front-runner to take over a Raiders offense that has gained just 4.6 yards per play (29th in the NFL) and scored only 18.7 points per game (26th).

It has been a disastrous first full season as Raiders head coach for Pierce, whose encouraging nine-game interim stint last season earned him the permanent gig. He’s continuing to learn on the job, and his harshest lesson so far was the hiring of Getsy.

Despite lackluster results as Chicago Bears offensive coordinator, Getsy was brought onboard by Pierce to construct a run-first attack to complement a talented Raiders defense. That physical rushing identity never materialized as Las Vegas has averaged an NFL-worst 3.5 yards per carry.

The Raiders did even worst than that yesterday, 21 carries for 60 yards, an average of 2.9 yards per carry, with the longest run of the day being just 7 yards.

The Raiders’ biggest problem, however, has been their terrible quarterback play. Then again, first-year general manager Tom Telesco didn’t do Pierce (or Getsy) any favors when he signed journeyman backup Gardner Minshew to compete with second-year pro Aidan O’Connell for the starting job. Both Minshew and O’Connell struggled in Getsy’s unimaginative passing attack.

Ahhh, Gardner Minshew. At the very end of the first half, with the Raiders trailing 17-10, Mr Minshew was about to be sacked for a big loss on third down, but instead threw the ball away. That stopped the clock, and the Raiders had to punt. If he had simply taken the sack, the Raiders could have run out the clock and not had to punt, not given the Bengals a chance for a significant punt return, and a chance at another score. He simply had no awareness of the situation.

The dismissals of Getsy, Cregg and Scangarello are a desperate attempt to salvage a 2024 season that’s already been lost as far as posteason hopes. With the obvious offseason priority of drafting a franchise QB, Telesco and owner Mark Davis must determine who is the best head coach and play caller to groom a young quarterbacking talent like Shedeur Sanders or Cam Ward.

Or Quinn Ewers!

At 2-7, the Raiders have a legitimate shot at the first draft choice, but there are a few other teams bad enough to qualify for that.

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And these are the people the ‘Palestinian’ supporters admire?

We’ve seen so many demonstrations, by supposedly educated Americans and other Westerners, in support of the ‘Palestinians’, their Islamic culture, ‘settler colonialism,’ and fighting ‘Islamophobia’. Sensible people have mocked them, noting that those protesters are the beneficiaries of ‘settler colonialism,’ being privileged to live in the United States, and especially the “Queers for Palestine,” pointing out that being openly queer in any of the Islamic lands is an invitation to beating, torture, jail, or even execution.

Now we come to this, from, of all place, al Jazeera:

Five children among seven killed in attack on Pakistan polio vaccine drive

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemns attack near a girls’ school in the southwestern province of Balochistan.

All Saints’ Day, November 1, 2024

At least seven people, including five schoolchildren, have been killed and 23 injured in a bombing near a girls’ school in southwestern Pakistan, officials said.

Friday’s attack targeted police guarding a polio vaccination drive in Mastung, a town in Balochistan province.

“The target was a police van which was going to pick up a polio [vaccination] team,” Senior Superintendent of Police Rahmat Ullah told the Reuters news agency.

One police officer and a shopkeeper were also killed in the explosion, senior police officer Abdul Fatah told the AFP news agency.

The blast was believed to have been caused by an improvised device attached to a motorcycle parked near the school.

The Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan have frequently attacked polio vaccinators, claiming that they were distributing evil, Western medicine. Some believe that the vaccines are prohibited by Islam:

Another population study from Peshawar, Pakistan, reported that 79% of participants were not willing to vaccinate their children as they believe that vaccine was composed of ingredients that are prohibited in their religion.

These are the people the supporters of the ‘Palestinians’ admire!

Of course, the doctors who developed the two polio vaccines were Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, both of whom were Jews, so perhaps that has something to do with the radical Islamists not wanting people vaccinated.

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I voted!

The rural counties of the Bluegrass State used to be solidly Democratic. Kentucky has had only a few Republican governors in recent memory, and up until the 2016 elections, the state House of Representatives was controlled by the Democrats, the one of the last legislative chambers in the South — I was tempted to write “in the Confederacy,” but Kentucky never seceded or joined the CSA — controlled by the Democrats.

Since then, the Bluegrass State has been solidly Republican. Donald Trump carried Kentucky in both 2016 and 2020, by huge margins.

How have things changed? I noted a sample ballot on the walls, and all of the candidates for the city council of the city of Irvine — where I do not vote — were listed as Republicans. Not a single one was a Democrat, which means that no Democrat even entered the May primary.

The races in which I could vote? Other than the presidential race, only the contest for Kentucky’s sixth congressional district were even contested. All but one had a Republican nominee, with no Democratic opponent, while one, for Commonwealth’s Attorney, had a Democratic nominee, but no Republican opponent. Naturally, I voted for all Republicans, but left the vote for Commonwealth’s Attorney blank.

The line was much longer than I had anticipated; there were well over fifty people who were in line when I was. And yes, the Commonwealth required a positive ID to be able to vote.

At least in our county, we had paper ballots, which we marked, and then fed into a machine reader. This way, if there is a recount necessary, the paper ballots have been retained for recount. This is the way elections should be held.

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There’s no threat quite like an empty threat!

“Why do you keep bashing your head into that wall?” ask sensible people.

“Because it feels so good when I stop,” answers Ali Khamenei.

“We are capable of destroying all that the Zionists possess with one operation,” said General Ali Fadavi, the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps deputy commander. So, General Fadavi is telling us that Iran’s two separate ballistic missile attacks on Israel, the vast majority of which were intercepted, and the few that hit doing little damage, were not attempts to ‘destroy all that the Zionists possess’?

Iranian Officials Threaten Retaliation for Israeli Strikes

It was unclear how or when Iran plans to respond, or whether the rhetoric could be bluster. Iranian officials had downplayed the damage of Israel’s last attack.

By Farnaz Fassihi | Hallowe’en, October 31, 2024

Two top Iranian officials on Thursday said Iran planned to respond to Israel’s recent attacks, according to Iranian media, threatening to continue a cycle of retaliation between the countries.

“Iran’s response to the Zionist aggression is definite,” said Gen. Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to Iranian media. “We have never left an aggression unanswered in 40 years. We are capable of destroying all that the Zionists possess with one operation.”

General Fadavi’s remarks, made to Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen television station, were the first statement from an Iranian official indicating that Iran intended to retaliate to Israel’s Oct. 26 strikes on its soil. The escalating tit-for-tat cycle of direct attacks between Iran and Israel over the last six months has taken the region to the brink of an all-out war, but neither side appears to be standing down.

The second Iranian official, the head of the supreme leader’s office, Gholamhossein Mohammadi Golpayegani, also said on Thursday that Iran planned to deliver “a fierce, tooth-breaking response” to Israel’s “desperate action,” according to Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.

A “tooth-breaking response”? It’s a good thing that there are so many Jewish dentists! 🙂

Iran’s “Supreme Leader,” the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the attack after reviewing the damages reported by military officials, which detailed the strikes across Tehran’s missile production plants and defense systems, including the killing of four soldiers. The attack did not target existing missile stockpiles, meaning that Iran has some left, but the ability of the mad mullahs to have more of them built. The attack did not target Iran’s nuclear weapons research facility, which is supposed to have been seriously hardened against attack.

In one regard, I get it. The Ayatollah has to strike at Israel last, because he feels the need to save face, both for his country and for himself. However, he is reported to be seriously, if not terminally ill, and at 85-years-old, he doesn’t have that much time left on earth. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu probably looks at things the same way, that Israel must strike last, but his concerns are different: Israel faces enemies north and south and cannot afford the slightest sign of weakness. Mr Netanyahu’s political position isn’t the strongest, so there are personal reasons for him to continue to strike.

Iran striking Israel is, in the end, fanaticism. None of the actual nations bordering Israel want war, because they know that Israel is capable of defeating them easily. Iran is 1,000 miles away from Israel, and isn’t an Arabic nation; the people there are primarily Persians. Iran’s grievance with Israel is wholly religious, because the Islamists who control the place hate Jews. There is absolutely no other reason for Iran to want to fight Israel.

But, then again, Iran is ultimately governed by a madman.

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He will do it again

Tyler Boyle under arrest, via WPVI-TV.

What sentence did he face originally?

It is always a good thing to see child molesters sentenced to jail, but it’s not a good thing, not a good thing at all, to see them sentenced to far to little time in prison.

An Aldan man was sentenced to county jail for trying to lure underage girls into his car, possessing child porn

Tyler Boyle approached underage girls on two separate occasions as they were walking home from school. After his arrest, police found a hidden cache of child porn on his cell phone.

by Vinny Vella | Hallowe’en, October 31, 2024 | 2:29 PM EDT

An Aldan man who twice tried to lure underage girls walking near their schools to get into his car and asked one to perform a sex act was sentenced Thursday to 11½ to 23 months in county jail.

Tyler Boyle, 21, pleaded guilty in July to luring a child into a motor vehicle, corruption of minors, and related crimes for approaching the girls, as well as possessing child pornography for a hidden cache of images investigators discovered on his cell phone after his arrest.

As a result of the sentence handed down by Delaware County Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan, Boyle must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Assistant District Attorney Bryan Barth said that while it was fortunate none of the victims was physically harmed, Boyle’s behavior warranted incarceration.

So, a guilty plea. His sentence? 11½ to 23 months in the Delaware County jail. Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Vinny Vella continued to tell us that Mr Boyle apologized for his actions and regretted the impact hey had on the victims and their families.

“I’m doing all I can do to change my destructive behavior,” Boyle said. “I vow to get all the help I need, go back to school to finish my degree, and become a productive member of society.”

Tyler Boyle receiving his award for becoming an Eagle Scout, via Pennsylvania’s 163rd Legislative District in Delaware County

Translation: his lawyer told him to express contrition. WPVI-TV identified him as a former Eagle Scout.

Well, perhaps he really is contrite, perhaps he really is sorry for what he did, as well as for having gotten caught. But this wasn’t his first offense.

When he was arrested for this offense, he was already out on bail for exposing himself to a kindergarten aged girl. The girls in the current case were 11-years-old at the time. He still faces the charges for the 2022 arrest.

What, I have to ask, are the odds that Mr Boyle will come out of the county jail reformed? What are the odds that the two incidents for which he was arrested are the only two attempts he made to lure young girls? After his first arrest, if there was ever any chance that Mr Boyle could somehow restrain his sick urges, that chance was obviously zero to judge by the fact that he offended a second time.

The fear of jail didn’t stop him from that second offense, so what are the chances that 11½ to 23 months in county will create enough of an overriding fear that his unnatural urges won’t get the better of him again?

Unfortunately, Mr Vella’s story did not tell us what kind of jail time he was facing. He was charged with “two counts each of felony luring a child into a vehicle, felony unlawful contact with minors, and felony corruption of minors, according to court records.” Under 18 §2910(a)(a.1)(2) Luring a child into a motor vehicle or structure is a second-degree felony, which, under 18 §106 (b)(3) carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. He could have been locked up for twenty years just on those two counts.

Was Mr Boyle given a lenient plea deal so the children would not have to testify? That kind of thing happens a lot. However, child pornography was found on his cell phone, and that, too, is a felony. Under 18 §6312(d)(d.1)(2)(i) simple possession of child pornography is a third degree felony, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, and none of the victims would have had to have testified for that charge to have been brought to trial.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly has provided for strict sentences for the sexual abuse of children and preying on them, but, as happens far, far, far too often, in many of our states, the criminal justice system is far too lenient in imposing sentences for these crimes.

Gary Plauché was unavailable for comment.

 

 

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Who do you believe?

This site reported, on October 28th, about the efforts of collegiate officials to stop female athletes from complaining about male members on their teams or having to compete against males who claim to be female on other teams.

Well, no, complains the Athletic Director of the University of Nevada at Reno, that’s not what happened at all!

Nevada AD addresses allegations of pushing volleyball women to face trans athlete, says she apologized

A player alleges the university told them that the trans athlete opponent would be at a disadvantage

By Jackson Thompson, Fox News | Wednesday, October 30, 2024 | 7:35 AM EDT

The University of Nevada, Reno athletic director Stephanie Rempe addressed a recent national controversy surrounding her women’s volleyball program in a statement to Fox News Digital.

A dispute between volleyball players and the athletic department over whether to compete against a team with a trans athlete resulted in a last-minute forfeit due to not having enough players to participate on Friday. Players had told the university they did not want to play the match, but the program refused to forfeit until the day before it was scheduled.

Team captain Sia Liilii then alleged that the school told her and her teammates that “they didn’t understand the science” and to “reconsider their position,” at a press conference on Saturday.

On Sunday, Liilii alleged that she and her teammates were told the trans opponent “was at a disadvantage” due to the medication taken to transition from male to female, during the “Stand With Women” event in Philadelphia.

Why, how odd. A site search of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website for “Stand withe Women” didn’t have any story on that event.

Sophomore Masyn Navarro alleged her teammates had been told to “stay quiet” about the controversy during the Saturday press conference but did not specify who told them.

Athletic Director Remke denied it all:

“I did not tell, and am unaware of any member of the athletics administrative team telling members of our women’s volleyball team that they ‘weren’t educated enough,’ that they ‘didn’t understand the science,’ that they should reconsider their position or that they should ‘stay quiet’ regarding their participation in an Oct. 26 match that was scheduled against San Jose State University.”

Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she? But note how she expressed it: she stated that she never stated those things, and that she was unaware of anyone else saying so.

Absent an actual recording of the meeting, we have no evidence of who is telling the truth, but the “didn’t understand the science” remark had been reported a couple of weeks earlier.

It isn’t difficult to imagine the university trying to claim that Brayden ‘Blaire’ Fleming was somehow disadvantaged, or, as was previously reported, isn’t really that good, but whether those claims are accurate or not misses the point. It isn’t that males should be allowed to compete in women’s sports based on how good or poor they happen to be, but that they shouldn’t be allowed to compete in women’s sports period. If you are male, compete in men’s sports!

The university actually was put in a problematic legal position. Because the state constitution prohibits discrimination against a whole host of things, including “gender identity,” if the university refused to play SJSU due to the presence of Mr Fleming, on the UN-R campus, there could be legal problems. So UN-R and SJSU moved the contest to San José, and the forfeit wouldn’t occur in Nevada. More, when the UN-R players didn’t appear for the match, it was a forfeit:

On Thursday, (October 24th) the Nevada women’s volleyball team traveled to Fresno State to take on the Bulldogs. They lost, 3-2.

According to OutKick sources, Nevada provided two buses for players. One bus was destined for San Jose State, for players who wanted to play against the Spartans and Blaire Fleming.

The other bus was destined for Reno, to take the women home. The players elected to go back to Reno.

Because of that, the school officially announced on Friday that they would not play the match against San Jose State.

“Due to not having enough players to compete, the University of Nevada women’s volleyball team will not play its scheduled Mountain West Conference match at San José State on Saturday, Oct. 26,” the school said in a statement.

So, UN-R forfeited the match not because SJSU had a male player, but because not enough UN-R players were available to compete. Yup, that’s the lawyers being involved.

So, who do you believe? Do you believe the very professional Athletic Director, with the school’s lawyers telling her what to say and how to say it, or do you believe the athletes, in their late teens and early twenties, who don’t have professional public relations people behind and scripting them, who are going against the flow and political correctness, who are taking a team loss for the greater good?

I know who I believe!

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The losses at The Washington Post * Updated! *

My subscription to The Washington Post is very reasonable, and far less than subscriptions to The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other newspapers. Both the Times and the Inquirer endorsed Kamala Harris Emhoff, whom I regard as a crackpot, socialist, and unChristian supporter of prenatal infanticide, but I didn’t cancel my subscriptions to them over their endorsements.

I doubt that anyone would have cared had the Post endorsed Mrs Emhoff, and I also doubt that newspaper endorsements mean much, especially now that their circulation continues to decline. Newspapers are, as I have previously called them, 18th century technology.

We have previously noted how the butthurt left were cancelling subscriptions to the Post, but have apparently misunderestimated just how butthurt they have been! From National Public Radio:

Over 200,000 subscribers flee ‘Washington Post’ after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

Continue reading →

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World War III Watch: Will American/NATO weapons be used against North Korean troops inside Russia? With President Biden sinking into dementia, who will take that decision?

This site noted, four days ago, that there were roughly 3,000 North Korean troops ‘undergoing training at military bases in eastern Russia’, and that John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said those troops would become “legitimate military targets” if they should be used in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Now those troops aren’t quite so far away. From The New York Times:

Ukraine Braces for Russians to Assault With North Korean Troops

Several thousand North Korean soldiers have arrived in Russia’s western Kursk region, where they are expected to support Moscow’s efforts to dislodge invading Ukrainian forces.

By Constant Méheut | Monday, October 28, 2024 | 10:53 AM EDT

Kyiv — Ukraine is bracing for assaults involving North Korean soldiers who arrived last week in Russia’s western Kursk region, where they are expected to support Moscow’s efforts to dislodge Ukrainian forces who invaded in August. Continue reading →

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Once again, the left want opponents to just to just shut the heck up!

It all seems so familiar. We reported, in December of 2021, how the female members of the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team were told to keep their mouths shut about Will ‘Lia’ Thomas, the mentally ill man male who claimed he was female on the team:

‘It’s bringing people to tears’: SECOND UPenn swimmer speaks out against trans Lia Thomas competing for the women’s team and says the crowd was silent when she won most recent meet

  • An second anonymous female swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania has spoken out to say she and her teammates are upset by transgender teammate
  • Lia Thomas, 22, smashed three US swimming records at an Akron, Ohio contest last weekend 
  • Thomas also gave an interview to SwimSwam touting the fairness of inclusive but controversial IOC guidelines allowing transgender athletes to compete 
  • Thomas previously competed for the school’s men’s team for three years before joining the women’s team with her last men’s competition in November 2019 

By James Gordon | Published: 18:29 EST, 10 December 2021 | Updated: 21:33 EST, 10 December 2021

A second female swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania has aired her frustrations and fury as her transgender teammate Lia Thomas continues to smash records.

The entire team has been ‘strongly advised’ not to speak to the media and the second swimmer has been granted anonymity.

Nevertheless, the teammate stepped forward to tell how UPenn swimmers are ‘angry’ over what has been perceived as a ‘lack of fairness’ as Thomas smashes record after record in the pool.

The officials at the University of Pennsylvania told the women basically to shut their mouths and swim. Another female team member said that “she feared for her ability to find employment after graduating from college for sharing her honest opinion about a transgender teammate,” a fear that the university’s officials pushed. In a letter that sixteen of Mr Thomas’ teammates anonymously released, they stated that they “have been told that if we spoke out against her inclusion into women’s competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer.”

Well, it’s happening again, this time in Nevada: Continue reading →