LinkSwarm for March 30, 2018

Happy Good Friday! Spring has sprung and I’m knee-deep in my taxes.

  • The sitcom Roseanne‘s return features the titular character as a Trump supporter and enjoys smash ratings.
  • French President Emmanuel Macron talks about sending forces to Syria to block Turkey, then almost immediately walks it back, offering to “mediate” between Turkey and the coalition-backed, Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces. That’s…interesting.
  • What will Middle East Studies academics do now that Saudi sugar daddy Alwaleed bin Talal is out of favor? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • More ObamaCare rate hikes coming, as Democrats in blue states scramble to avoid the inevitable results of their own policy choices. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Headline: “POPE SAYS HELL DOESN’T EXIST!” (tiny print) “According to a 93 year old atheist who has been wrong before, didn’t tape him, and is quoting from memory. And the Pope himself denies it.” Guess I’ll have to cancel that hooker and blow party I was going to throw Easter Sunday, just in case…
  • Gun ownership rates say absolutely nothing about homicide statistics.

    When a media source such as Mother Jones or Everytown for Gun Safety implies that “we have a gun problem,” they are making exactly the same reasoning error as if they said, “we have a black people problem.”

    And black population was six times more predictive than gun ownership was.

  • Harris County hit with lawsuit for refusing to turn over voter roles so non-citizens can be purged.
  • Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is running for reelection on a platform of opposing Muslim immigration and George Soros.
  • Texas booze lobby defeated in court, paving the way for Sam’s Club, Costco, and other national chains to start selling hard liquor. (Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings.)
  • Mozilla launches a “condom” extension to thwart Facebook spying on other sites.
  • Of all the things to be adopted by the InfoWars right as a bulwark against the radical left, an Austin vegetarian cat café would seem to be among the most unlikely.
  • What happens when an airliner crashes in your front yard.
  • Oracle vs. Google heads back to trial.
  • Karl Rehn attended the 2018 Rangemaster Tactical Conference and brought back lots of insights on things like engaging active shooters. That’s just the first of four after action reports, and all are worth your time to click through.
  • Latest Hollywood bigshot to sexually exploit underage women: Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi.

    In an extensive report from BuzzFeed, cartoonist John Kricfalusi—the creator of iconic Nickelodeon series Ren & Stimpy—has been accused of sexually exploiting teenage girls, promising them careers in animation at his studio Spumco while allegedly grooming them for sexual relationships. One of the women, Robyn Byrd, says it all began in 1994 when she was only 13, after she sent Kricfalusi a video of herself talking about how she wanted a career in animation and how important Ren & Stimpy was to her. Kricfalusi, who was 39 at the time, responded by sending her packages of toys and art supplies, and eventually he helped her set up an AOL account so they could communicate more regularly.

    Kricfalusi visited Byrd at her home and told her that she could “become a great artist,” and later he invited her out to Los Angeles, where she says he “touched her genitals through her pajamas” while they were at his house. She was 16. In 1997, Kricfalusi gave Byrd an internship at Spumco; she lived with him during this period, prompting him to allegedly call her “his 16-year-old girlfriend.” Convinced that he was helping her launch the career of her dreams, Byrd moved in with Kricfalusi once she graduated from high school.

    Apparently, this was all an open secret in the animation world at the time, partly due to an interview Kricfalusi gave with Howard Stern in which he creepily noted that a “hot chick with big cans and nice legs” he had drawn for a comic book was “underage, too.” People working at Spumco allegedly shrugged off the relationship between Byrd and Kricfalusi, with another former intern noting that Kricfalusi once “left out a drawing he made of Byrd, naked, with a dog ejaculating on her.”

  • Via Dwight comes a followup to yesterday’s Waco biker trial roundup: “Yesterday a judge ordered the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office to stop distributing what his attorney calls “private, intimate sexual images” of former defendant Cody Ledbetter and his wife.”
  • All good things must come to an end. And all bad ones.
  • Polish man kayaks across the Atlantic. Three times.
  • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Leave a Reply