November 2011 – Page 13 – Shall Not Be Questioned

It’s Time to Fire Joe Paterno

For those of you who don’t follow Pennsylvania sports, there’s really only one team that doesn’t completely suck and plays in something close to what the rest of the country considers real college football. It’s Penn State, and their head coach has been there since 1950 (though only as head coach since 1966). The man is revered in Pennsylvania. I don’t understand why, either. Joe Paterno has only got such a high number of wins because he’s been doing the job so long. He doesn’t have the highest percentage of wins, and earlier this decade, he led the team in a severe losing streak.

This weekend, conveniently on an off week for Penn State & released on a Saturday, the state AG’s office announced that one of Paterno’s now-retired coaches has been sexually assaulting very young boys for years. The charges aren’t just for minors, but for minors under the age of 13. The guy also had a charity set up for troubled young boys that served as his easy source of victims.

To make the news for Penn State even worse? Paterno knew and decided to simply tell the school’s athletic director once he heard from an eyewitness that his coaching staff was raping a boy who appeared to be about 10 in the stadium’s showers. The athletic director & a school vice president are now being charged with perjury and not reporting the incident to police. Yet, prosecutors seem to be ignoring the fact that Paterno and a graduate assistant in the football program also knew and did not report it to police, instead only reported it to college officials. (Granted, not reporting the crime seem to be only a summary offense. In that case, I believe that’s actually a better reason to use the charge – it won’t end someone’s life, but it will reiterate that they should have reported it.)

Of course, this is not the first time that Paterno has ignored the consequences of sexual assault allegations. When a player from another team was alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman, here was Paterno’s response:

â€œThereâ€™s some tough â€” thereâ€™s so many people gravitating to these kids. He may not have even known what he was getting into, Nicholson. They knock on the door; somebody may knock on the door; a cute girl knocks on the door. What do you do?â€

Here’s a hint: If a cute girl knocks on a door, don’t sexually assault her. (Though, it would seem the case against the player ultimately didn’t go anywhere, the accusations were fresh at the time he was asked.)

So, what do you do when someone tells you your former staffer who you allow to access your stadium & allow to attend games & coaching meetings with these young boys is seen raping them in the showers? Here’s a hint, Paterno: You don’t go to your boss and then leave it alone. You call the police. If your boss won’t do it, you do it. You follow up every damn day. You encourage the guy who actually witnessed the assault to go to the police.

I find this most appalling because I’ve seen local media & commentary applauding Paterno for his great response of not calling the police when he hears that young children are being raped by his coaching staff in his team’s showers. WTF?

I look back to my memories of the most popular coach I can recall in Oklahoma – Barry Switzer. (Please keep in mind that I was 9 years old when the guy resigned, so I’m having to go off news reports I’m finding now.) Switzer had to resign from OU (with a higher percentage of wins than Paterno, thankyouverymuch) after several players were arrested for various crimes and the NCAA launched an investigation into the program. Yet, Paterno is still at Penn State with full support after ESPN reported that in a six year period, 46 of his players managed to find themselves with 163 criminal charges. That comes out to more than three criminal charges per player in trouble in a few short years.

I don’t understand how this guy still has the support of the school, support in the media, and support of alumni. According to media reports, the Board of Trustees didn’t even entertain the question of whether Paterno should be forced to resign or retire. I come from a state that is far more serious about their college football, and I’m pretty sure that after this kind of record, we would be calling for the heads of everyone who knew and didn’t report it to law enforcement.

Joe Paterno’s career should end, and he should not be revered as some amazing football coach. He should be remembered as a guy who looked the other way while children were raped and assaulted on his watch. Of course, should he leave on his own terms, Pennsylvania taxpayers will likely be on the hook for a very generous retirement package to reward his behavior of looking the other way for criminals in his program.

UPDATE 11/8: The NYT reports that inside sources say Paterno’s time is up at Penn State. They are supposedly working on an exit plan now.

Caught Astroturfing

Thirdpower has uncovered that one “I’m a gun owner… but” article was actually written by the former Mayor of Madison, WI, who is actually a member of the anti-gun group Â Mayors Against Illegal Guns, going by the name of “Citizen Dave.” You see, when they don’t actually have grassroots, they will manufacture them. I would be reluctant to call these people “Fudds.” A more apt word would be “Frauds.” These folks are anti-gun forces masquerading as sportsmen. Kudos to the bloggers who uncovered the true identify of this bozo.

This is really no match for our grassroots resources. Our opponents’ duplicity is too easy to uncover, and, after all, they take the weekends off.

On State Defense Forces

Instapundit links to this Strategy Page story on state defense forces. They are a lot more common than you might think. While the National Guard is pretty clearly what our founding fathers would have considered a “select militia,” the various SDFs are the modern equivalent of what would be considered more traditional militias. Today most SDFs aren’d armed bodies, but serve as an emergency resource.

Disarming Our Soldiers (For Their Own Good)

As the Brady Campaign descends to new depths of madness, here’s just one other objective our opponents are supporting:

The article they link to is here:

“Multiple studies indicate that preventing easy access to lethal means, such as firearms, is an effective form of suicide prevention,” authors Harrell and Berglass wrote.

They are urging Congress to repeal the restriction on the military interfering with the private firearm ownership of soldiers. Understand what they are saying here: we have to prevent “easy access” to “lethal means” for our nation’s soldiers.

If any police or military folks thinks these people won’t eventually disarm you, think again.

While the Gun Control Crowd Has Been in Hysterics …

… over the fact that Wisconsin has just become the 41st state to adopt shall-issue…. gun owners have been busy lobbying the Wisconsin legislature to pass Castle Doctrine.

Holding Up to the Instalanche

I am pleased to have gotten a link from Instapundit yesterday, which brought in some traffic to give the new server a bit of a test. We seem to have held up well.

I have circled the load under Instalanche, which did not even really make the server break a sweat. We don’t max out until 400%. Monitoring the number of new incoming TCP connections looks pretty good as well:

Again, not too out of the ordinary. The previous server was a Core2Quad, and this is a Quad-core Xeon. I think the big difference is the fact that I have a lot more RAM, so I’m able to run more apache processes simultaneously, which allows for servicing a larger number of clients. I have also greatly improved caching in the new server. Aside from the hacking attempt, I am pleased with the upgrade. Even better that the upgrade was thanks to salvaged hardware that didn’t cost me anything.

My network graph shows barely a blip. Granted, this was a weekend link, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest the new server is robust enough to handle a weekday Glenn link with more room to spare.

Food for Gunnies

For those of us who did not win the NRA toasters this year, we can’t enjoy pro-gun food at our fingertips. That is, unless, someone hadn’t inspired me to search for gun-related foods. Did you know there’s a gunpowder tea? Yeah, not a big tea drinker here, so it was news to me. More below, including a video on how to use a clam gun – another item I’ve never heard of before now.

The clam gun intrigued me. I had to look it up. Fortunately, there’s an example on YouTube to help those born in the landlocked states understand.

I heard that the NRA toaster at the Kona (Big Island of Hawaii) Friends of NRA dinner went for $650 this week. I told someone at NRA that the average rate of return on that thing has got to be huge, even if it doesn’t bring in the highest dollar amount. Clearly, there is a market for devices that can make one’s food express the maker’s pro-gun nature. I don’t know what else they could offer that would be just as novel, but I’d love to sit in on a meeting to try and think up new ideas. Something to add the NRA brand to pats of butter? The NRA loaf pan that makes sure all of your holiday bread treats have the NRA logo emblazoned on the side? The NRA bundt-like pan that allows you to bake cakes in the form of your three favorite letters?

So Very True

If I could find a graphic that so very correctly illustrated the different philosophies of the American left and American right these days, it would be this. The intersection here is in libertarian philosophy, if only we could have a candidate emerge that wasn’t about catering to one snake pit versus the other:

UPDATE: I should clarify, I don’t think the Tea Party is so libertarian, in general, as this graphic illustrates. What it suggests is that there are unifying principles that could be at work here. But both fringes are looking at ways to use these phenomenas to pit the “right” side against the “wrong.” I’ve always wondered if there are compromises that could be had that don’t fit into any of the generally recognized political structures, but would work better than what we have now.

Is Rohrer Really the Best GOP (Potential) Candidate Against Casey?

I disagree with Sebastian that Sam Rohrer’s potential entry into the Senate race against Bob Casey makes him the best candidate the GOP has to run. My issues with him all center around his ability to run a viable statewide campaign. We had a preview of his attempts in the gubernatorial race last year, and I think his decisions proved that he doesn’t know how to prioritize how to spend money or turn out the actual votes needed to win. Some of this is rehashed from previous comments around the blog and emails with readers.

Why Sam Shouldn’t Run
His primary campaign proved that he wasn’t capable of running in a serious statewide race. Considering a race against Casey would be even tougher than a primary against Corbett, I think these issues are even more important to consider. His campaign did a lot of local events that often turned out 50-200 people. That normally sounds like a great grassroots campaign strategy. In some ways, it can get voters talking to their friends and neighbors more than a larger typical political rally. But what many campaign observers noticed is that he kept talking to the same groups over and over. He never branched out beyond typical Tea Party-type events. In politics, you have to build a coalition of voters to win. In a purple state that will see a strong influx of Democratic money for the presidential election, the Tea Party support won’t cut it. It won’t even come close. Without solid existing relationships with a variety of coalition groups, he may not even pull together quite a bit of the traditional Republican vote. If he could not or would not reach out to the coalitions during a GOP primary, we can’t trust that he’ll try to reach them or independents in 2012.

The other big red flag for Sam Rohrer is how he prioritized his spending during the last race. His gubernatorial fundraising account had a whooping $272.25 left in it. (This statement was true at the time I wrote the original comment in winter of 2010.) Oh, and that’s only if he decides to ignore the $10,000 loan he made to his own campaign that is still outstanding. Considering the average cost to win a Senate seat in 2010 was $8.28 million (and down ticket races will be competing with presidential candidates in 2012 for airtime expenses), starting off $9,727.75 in the hole isn’t exactly the best place to be a little over a year out from the primary.

Rohrer didn’t have a lot of money to work with, so he really needed to use it wisely. Instead, he paid Aaron Tippin $10,000. A concert? Really? Three days before an election it’s time to get out the vote, not goof off in Harrisburg. He paid $2,000 directly to Joe the Plumber for his support. (There’s an additional listing for his services combined with some robocalls for $17,429. It’s not clear just how much of that went to Joe the Plumber.) Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes were up by then, and he certainly doesn’t have any serious connections to groups of voters in Pennsylvania.

Unfortunately, Rohrer’s campaign tried to rely on political stunts to get media coverage. That’s no way to run a statewide campaign, something I think is accurately reflected in the results of the election (more than 2-1 loss). The other issue that Rohrer has working against him are his own supporters. I realize that’s not his fault, but some of them have left a very bad impression with other coalition groups. Many took that attitude that if their guy didn’t win, they would take their ball back home and sit out completely. That’s not the way to build a serious coalition to support your current or future favored candidates.

If Rohrer could learn to raise money in a heartbeat, teach his most vocal supporters how to play well with others so they can successfully recruit into the cause, make an effort to actually reach out to non-Tea Party groups, and demonstrate he’s learned how to effectively spend money on getting out the vote, then he could have potential. I don’t think he’s done that in the last year.

Who is the Best GOP Candidate?
Let me just say that I don’t know if there’s a fantastic candidate who will absolutely have a great chance against Casey. Bob Casey has made his reputation by avoiding the spotlight and hoping people think he is his father. Consider that Pat Toomey just barely squeaked out a win in 2010, and that was against a far left liberal. Casey has the perception of being a moderate. Hell, he barely has the perception of having a pulse, so he’s hardly making waves with people in a negative way. Not to mention, Joe Sestak had a nice & dirty primary before his general campaign against Toomey. We won’t have that to bring down Casey’s reputation in 2012.

There’s at least one candidate who already has a bit of a federal profile & fundraising network. Tim Burns launched a campaign against John Murtha and ended up having to run in both a special election and a general against a replacement candidate who had all of the contacts without all of the personal baggage and negative name recognition of Murtha. Even with the special circumstances, Burns managed to pull off 45% of the vote in the special and 49% of the vote in the general election. Considering how much of the district’s economy depended on the pork that only Murtha and his staff (his successor Mark Critz was his Chief of Staff) could deliver, it’s amazing that Burns managed to perform so well in a time of economic uncertainty. Because it started as a campaign against Murtha, it means that Burns could tap into nationwide fundraising resources for that campaign. He presumably still has that kind of reach.

Another candidate with serious potential, but less of a track record in the campaign department, is Steve Welch from the Philly suburbs. He was in the race for Congress until Pat Meehan bumped him out. Then, he was recruited to run in the neighboring district since the next district is nearby and incumbent Rep. Gerlach was leaving the seat to run for governor – until Gerlach changed his mind and essentially booted Welch from the race. The fact that so many Republicans in the area want him to run to represent them speaks well of him, and he has recruited a campaign team with experience running successful statewide races with strong independent support. He’s wealthy, so that also gives him a head start in the fundraising game.

Those are just my two cents about the current crop of serious potential candidates.

Attention Hacker

To the script kiddie that tried to hack my server — you’ll have to try a lot harder than that if you want to exploit my box. But congratulations, you managed to launch a wild perl process and take up half my CPU power for a couple of hours. Had it not been for the fact that your socket code writing skills aren’t very L337, I might never have noticed.

That you got in at all is due to an oversight on my part in not locking down a directory, and due to an exploit in a theme we were using on one of my other blogs. That exploit has been removed. I also removed your fun little script, and am analyzing it now. I am not impressed with your lame hacking skills. I’d strongly recommend sticking to masturbating to porn in your parents’ basement. The next person might call be annoyed enough to call the cops.