Mike – Page 2

GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Memezapoppin’!

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Mike 1 Comment

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny pitcher-lovers.

Continue reading “Memezapoppin’!“ →

One step closer to Escape From New York

Posted on March 6, 2024March 6, 2024 by Mike 1 Comment

Somewhere, Snake Plissken is laughing his ass off.

New York Gov Hochul calls in National Guard, state police to help curb crime in NYC subways
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is sending in the state National Guard to New York City to help police curb a surge in crime in the city’s subways.

Announcing a five-point plan on Wednesday, the Democratic governor said she was deploying 750 members of the National Guard to the subways to assist the New York Police Department with bag searches at entrances to busy train stations.

“For people who are thinking about bringing a gun or knife on the subway, at least this creates a deterrent effect. They might be thinking, ‘You know what, it just may just not be worth it because I listened to the mayor and I listened to the governor and they have a lot more people who are going to be checking my bags,'” Hochul said at a news conference in New York City.

The move came as part of a larger effort by the governor’s office to address crime in the subway, which included a legislative proposal to ban people from trains for three years if they are convicted of assaulting a subway passenger and the installation of cameras in conductor cabins to protect transit workers.

OOOOOOH, a three year ban? Yeah, I’m SURE that’ll do it. Those scofflaws and thugs are bound to respect that law, after having disdained so many other ones threatening much more serious consequences. It’s the same magical-thinking mindset that drives the “gun control” fantasy; shitlibs fervently insist just one more piece of legislation will end gun crime…after well over 20,000 others failed to turn the trick.

A kingly gift

Posted on March 5, 2024March 5, 2024 by Mike 7 Comments

SO, last night a close friend of mine bought a dang guitar for me, this lovely Mosrite Joe Maphis-model facsimile, a single-neck reimagining of the original double-neck body style, handcrafted by a young luthier fella out in Monterey, Cullyfornya who’s offering his wares el cheapo on eBay for purposes of getting his work out there and his name established.

Purty, ain’t she? All-mahogany construction, P90s, Bigsby tailpiece (or a clone thereof, probably made of Chinesium, I’d bet), 24-fret neck w/ real-deal abalone inlays, everything a growing boy needs in a guitar.

BACKSTORY: After initially declining, I finally knuckled under and agreed to give my friend’s young son Zachary guitar lessons, an every-Saturday course of instruction which cranked up just over a month ago. Zachary showed willing, revealing some natural aptitude right off, practicing diligently at home, retaining the simple riffs and smattering of music theory I showed him, eager and excited to come down for his weekly lessons instead of the whining, pouting, and foot-dragging you get from some kids.

This encouraging display of studiousness, unfeigned enthusiasm, and potential motivated dear old Dad—now fairly bursting with pride in his son—to buy a mini-Strat starter kit (complete with cable, strap, picks, and even a small amp) for him to use instead of the tired old acoustic student-guitar of mine he’d started out on. The relatively heavy bronze acoustic strings hurt the little guy’s fingers—which, as I warned from Day One, they will do. The lighter-gauge electric strings and slimmer neck-profile will be much easier on him.

Now as I believe I’ve recounted here before, I’ve taken in a good few students over the years, although I’ve never taught a beginner before. Two facts I painstakingly informed all the poor victims who badgered me into taking them on of, from the git-go: 1) I am a truly awful teacher, being a most impatient sort; and 2) I truly, truly HATE teaching. Right down to my very bones, I hate it, I just ain’t cut out for that shit. Hence my stern resistance to inflicting my piss-poor teaching qualities on my friend’s boy, a really sweet, good-natured kid who has known me his entire life as “Uncle Mike.”

Anyhoo, with the acquisition last week of Zachary’s mini-Strat, my bud Zach Sr decided I needed an electric guitar of my own, insisting that I scout around for one at a reasonable price. Z explained this unexpected guitar-buying spree by saying it really made his heart happy to see me re-engaged with playing as a side-effect of teaching his son. He just wouldn’t take my repeated “No!” for an answer, eventually pestering me into submission over the course of the past week.

So after unearthing the above pseudo-Mosrite on eBay, I bid on the thing and ended up winning, scoring what looks to be a really nice instrument for a mite over 200 simoleons with shipping. Supposed to be delivered anytime from this Saturday to next Thursday, and I have to confess I’m pretty excited about it. Don’t tell anybody, aiight?

There’s a crappy old Peavey Heritage amp here for me to play the Mosrite through owned by my friend Don, a VERY occasional player who swore up and down the damned boat-anchor was FUBAR’d, wouldn’t make a sound. After a bit of investigating I found it had a broken power tube, but the main issue seemed to be that the speaker cable had been disconnected at the head-section output, dangling all forlorn at the bottom of the amp unnoticed. Plugged it back in and replaced the catastrophically-blown tube with a new Sovtek 6L6, so it should be good to go now.

Next up, gonna have to look into getting my hands shut of the accursed DePuytren’s Contracture that forced me into retirement seven miserable years ago, robbing me of a lifetime’s self-identity and happiness, instilling much mental anguish, confustication, and despair in their place. There’s a new, non-surgical treatment for the affliction now which works pretty well, or so I’m given to understand.

Although Zach has sworn to keep after me about it until I give in again, there will be NO triumphant return to the stage pour moi, not ever. I’ve always held to certain standards and preconditions for performing onstage, and rolling up there as a wheelchair-bound object of pity is definitely not among ‘em. To my way of thinking, the elusive, indefinable quality known as “stage presence” is not just important, it’s absolutely indispensible; if you can’t swagger out there like you own that fucking stage, then you got no business being there at all. Performing onstage isn’t about being shy, modest, or self-effacing; it’s all about being bold, self-assured, and confident to the point of cockiness. A stage performer—ALL performers—must for the duration of their stage-time be larger than life, not some mumbling, diffident cipher. It’s the only way as far as I’m concerned, you’re just wasting everybody’s time otherwise.

So, not happening, then. I’ll content myself with torturing the cats and kicking out the jams in my living room, thenksveddymuch.

The dullards who rule us

Posted on March 5, 2024March 5, 2024 by Mike 2 Comments

Their arrogance is exceeded by only two things: 1) their ignorance; 2) their presumptuous, egomaniacal assertion that they, and they alone, are fit to rule us when they so manifestly are anything but.

ATF Chief Tells CBS He’s Willing To Skirt Laws To Ban Guns He Doesn’t Even Know How To Use
President Joe Biden’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms Director Steven Dettelbach seems to know as much about guns as Democrat-nominated Supreme Court justices.

During his appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation” over the weekend, Dettelbach outlined for CBS News’s Margaret Brennan the ATF’s desire to ban certain firearms and modifications he claimed are loopholes in restrictive gun laws.

In the sit-down portion of his interview, Dettelbach claimed his 5,000-person agency is “way, way, way too small” to fully satisfy Biden’s gun-grabbing goals. He also admitted the ATF, even though barred from creating a federal database of firearm owners, still devotes its time and resources to “work within that system” and link guns to owners.

When the interview shifted to a demonstration featuring a table of unloaded firearms, Dettelbach tried his best to make the case for more regulation of law-abiding Americans’ top self-defense option. Even with the help of one of the ATF’s “leading experts,” however, Dettelbach failed to demonstrate knowledge of even the most basic firearm anatomy such as the difference between a clip and a magazine.

Acting AFT division chief Chris Bort, the “expert” present for the demonstration, also struggled to disassemble a pistol in an attempt to show how allegedly easily Americans can swap firearm frames. Bort is acting head of the ATF’s Firearms Ammunition Technology Division.

The vid of that bit is as hilarious as it is disturbing.

These are Democratic Party hires.

Allegedly an “expert”.

Today on Face the Nation:

Chris Bort—the acting chief of the ATF’s Firearms Ammunition Technology Division couldn’t assemble or disassemble a Glock.

Surely he couldn’t arrest or jail anyone. pic.twitter.com/cPReHWeTdc

— Dapper Detective (@Dapper_Det)

March 4, 2024

See what I mean about presumption and egomania? Surely this Bort chucklehead had to be well aware that he knew nothing whatsoever about the devices he’d be handling before a national TV audience as a scarifying demonstration of their monstrous lethality and ease of use—yet he couldn’t bestir himself to spend even a few minutes practicing with said devices in his swanky hotel suite the night before? Maybe doing a little light reading-up on his high-end laptop before bed, say, to avoid making a damned fool of himself before the TeeWee cameras in the morning?

In his predicament, wouldn’t you have? I sure would’ve. Any halfway sensible person would’ve, or so I’d expect.

But noooo. From all available evidence, these two abject feebs aren’t even smart enough to know they should be embarrassed by their spectacular self-beclownment—much less a tad more humble—as befits those who, in a more felicitous era, used to pridefully refer to themselves as “public servants.”

May I remind you: these are the shitwits spending God only knows how many taxpayer dollars to A) regulate and/or ban useful things which are beyond their meager comprehension; and B) pursue, imprison, and otherwise harass far better Americans than they’ll ever be, for the heinous crime of conducting themselves as if the clear, easily-understood words of the US Constitution still meant anything at all in Amerika v2.0.

May I also remind you: this dearth of intelligence coupled with supreme arrogance is hardly unique to the BATF, nor can these two assclowns be excused as the proverbial exception that proves the rule. Quite the opposite, depressingly enough: in FederalGovCo, it’s assclowns all the way down.

A Wokester military

Posted on March 5, 2024March 5, 2024 by Mike 4 Comments

Is a Weakster military.

SCOOP: Mandatory training for military members teaches that America was founded on racism, and parents are too ignorant and dumb to teach their children about it. They think parents need to stay out of their kids’ education and shouldn’t have a say in what they learn.

Only ‘The… pic.twitter.com/PGIfapYg13

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok)

March 5, 2024

Stephen puts the (GI) boot in.

Raichik added, “There’s so much more where this came from,” and I don’t doubt it.

There is only one reason to teach soldiers that the country they’re supposed to be willing to fight and die to protect is irredeemable.

The U.S. military has had its ups and downs, but since ending the draft half a century ago, it has been the most expertly trained and exquisitely armed force the world has ever seen. Even during the draft years immediately before World War II to the end of Vietnam, we paid for and usually got the best weapons and training the country could afford.

And unlike those militaries in all those shi*hole countries, our forces were apolitical. They didn’t serve a president or a party, but the country.

In the last several years, wokeness has come to infect our military just as it previously had our universities, news outlets, and the entertainment industry.

Our readiness now is about what you’d expect: “U.S. military is only ‘marginally’ prepared to defend America’s interests at a time when adversaries are ramping up military capabilities.”

I’ve begun thinking of our postmodern military not as a useless Woke Force but as a Third World military: a force that isn’t any good at fighting foreign wars but is perfectly suited for putting down domestic undesirables.

Do I exaggerate? In 2021, Woke Army Sgt. Cindy Bronson had a message for her fellow Americans in case martial law is declared: “Understand that if active duty military actually get deployed within the United States, that weapon is not just going to be pointed at other people, other countries, it’s pointed at you.”

“If you do not get in your house when I tell you to,” Bronson warned, “you become the enemy. Martial law. You know, when your rights get curtailed?”

Roger that, Bronson.

Yep. Duly noted, SGT Cupcake; anytime you’re feeling froggy enough, do feel free to jump. One more time, I’ll just let Canuck punk rockers DOA say it for me.

Update! Steyn gives us the lowdown on the hoedown.

The decadence and unseriousness revealed by (self-styled “transgender” Manwoman) Lieutenant-Colonel Dram ought to be deeply disturbing. The planet’s most lavishly funded fighting force took twenty years to lose to goatherds with fertiliser, and on the way out the door gifted them with enough hardware to make them the world’s eighth or ninth most powerful military. That should surely occasion a certain circumspection. Instead, the Pentagon doubled-down on the wokery and the wankery – and, after a twenty-minute tea-break, started up the usual racket all over again, this time in Ukraine.

How’s that working out for the Ukrainians? Unlike Afghanistan, it’s a demographic wasteland. In 2001, the census counted 48.5 million people in the country. A year ago, it was headed down toward half that – just 29 million. Lindsey Graham and Boris Johnson may be standing shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainian people, but even they must have noticed there are fewer and fewer Ukrainian shoulders to stand around with, at least if you go to Kiev rather than Poland or Hungary, Germany or Ireland. On the present rate of population decline, after the war there will be insufficient Ukrainians left to rebuild the economy – or, indeed, maintain basic demographic viability. Right now, thanks to Washington, Ukraine is flush with cash and weapons, but all out of fighting-age men.

Well, that’s what happens when you have the honour to be made the site of the Pentagon’s next Designated Fiasco. And yet back at home, thanks to the likes of Lieutenant-Colonel Dram and without benefit of Russian invasion, the US military is trending in the same direction:

Critical Staffing Shortage Prompts Air Force to Recruit Retirees

As goes the Air Force, so goes the Army and the Navy. Apparently, out in Flyoverland, there are few takers for a woke military that enriches generals-turned-lobbyists while you get blown up by Ahmed the “translator”. “Walk a mile in my heels” doesn’t really work when you’ve lost a leg in Helmand.

We are in the end-stage of a bad soap opera, when characters and plot have jumped the tracks, and there is no Bobby Ewing waiting in the shower. Three decades ago, it was pointed out that in the end Soviet Communism proved no more lasting than the span of one human lifetime: 1917-1991. Yet America’s blip of global dominance is looking just as fleeting: 1950-2020something – that last date being whenever the ever metastasizing brokeness causes total implosion. And, as things stand, the only thing the great republic (in Churchill’s affectionate designation) will be remembered for is that the entirety of western civilisation slid off the cliff on America’s watch. All the rest is details.

Pretty much, yeah. On the upside, though, when the fecal matter hits the rotary impeller for reals and the Great American Schism grinds ever on to the closing stages of its long, slow evolution from “Probably, someday, I think, very possibly” into “Current events, live and in color,” Amerika v2.0’s extravagantly broken Wokester military is going to find itself ensnared in yet another conflict it’s hopelessly incapable of coping with to tack onto its steadily-lengthening list of humiliating defeats.

Summing up the position

Posted on March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 by Mike 2 Comments

In the course of putting together tonight’s Eyrie meme post I ran across an oldie-but-goodie sitting in my voluminous “Memes” folder that I felt would be made best use of in its very own CF main-page spot.

Hopefully that’s big enough for older eyes like mine to read; not sure if the old “click to embiggen” wheeze will do the trick or not, honestly. If not, give me a shout in the comments and I’ll see if I can work out how to fix that.

The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine things

Posted on March 4, 2024March 11, 2024 by Mike 48 Comments

Welcome to Ye Olde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. Do note that the official CF comments policy remains in effect here, as enumerated in the left sidebar. All new posts will appear below this one. There will be blood…

Mike @Substack

New Eyrie posts go up on Mondays and Fridays, although the time of day may (and usually does) vary. Mike’s latest Eyrie offering is available for perusal here: Screamin’ meemie Monday!

Please do consider subscribing to The Eyrie, gang; all subscribers receive email notification whenever each new post goes live, and a paid sub is required to unlock commenting privileges.

SOIA yet?

Posted on March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 by Mike 9 Comments

Walsh is.

THE COLUMN: Now They Tell Us
Breaking news from 2020: “It’s Official: We Can Pretty Much Treat Covid Like the Flu Now.” What do you mean “now,” white man? From the Wall Street Journal:

A case of Covid no longer means isolating for five days, according to the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday. It’s the latest sign of the virus’s normalization four years after it upended our lives. You should now follow the same precautions with Covid as you take with the flu, according to new guidelines from the CDC. That means staying home until you’ve gone a day with no fever and symptoms start to improve. Take other precautions for the next five days, including wearing a mask and limiting close contact with others. Those are the same steps the CDC recommends for other respiratory viruses.

At what point have we had enough from these people?

Some of us reached that point long ago; others never will, no matter what. Still others are actually all for it. I call those perfidious “people” The Enemy.

The Malevolent Midget is gone now, pulling down his handsome pension for his “service,” but the evil that he did lives on after him. Should Trump actually overcome the forces arrayed against him and actually pull a Grover Cleveland and get re-elected to the office from which a “fortified” election forcibly ejected him in 2020, a just universe would allow him to deal out some well-deserved payback for the forces behind the Russia Hoax, the Climate-Change Hoax, and the Covid Hoax, not to mention the abrogation of American sovereignty at the southern (and northern) borders, the collapse of the American military into a sob-sisterhood of feminist resentment and gay and “transsexual” triumphalism, and all the other ills currently attendant upon these United States.

What lessons can we learn from this belated admission that the entire clusterkluge was a “mistake”? How to compensate for those who watched their loved ones die from behind a plate-glass window in Mengele Memorial Hospital? For those who — like a dear friend and mentor of mine — died from a second shot of the “vaccine” in the early days of the panic? For the families disrupted, restaurants closed, businesses destroyed, industries wrecked — and all with the witting complicity of the mainstream media, which so enthusiastically hosanna-ed the official narrative, despite the evidence of their own senses?

“Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.” Isn’t that how the saying goes? I wrote my answer in this space almost a year ago. Never forgive, never forget, I advised.

Agreed, wholeheartedly—with an addendum: Make. Them. PAY. Every single last one of the rotten bastards, be he great or small. Mike is on board with that.

Hoaxes like these will never end until you do something about it. They will continue to pile on “catastrophe” after “catastrophe,” demanding that we do something about it right now, including changing some of our most fundamental laws and principles in order to combat a non-existent “threat.” The only thing these people understand is power. Not logic, argument, evidence, moral suasion. And the only way to respond to them is with greater power. Ask yourself this: what would the Romans do? To ask the question is to answer it.

If that’s a bit too oblique for ya, the answer is explicitly spelled out in one of the post categories below. The Bee gets the last laugh.

CDC Officially Changes COVID Guidelines To Whatever Your Uncle Frank Said About It Years Ago https://t.co/jCRp9ZSPto pic.twitter.com/iJPiHRbYc1

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee)

March 3, 2024

Turns out ol’ Frank was right about a lot more than just FauxVid.

16th century technology comes to West By-God Virginia

Posted on March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 by Mike 1 Comment

A blight, an eyesore, and an inefficient, inadequate “solution” to a problem that does not exist.

This is what happens when a wind farm comes to a coal town
Sheila Wagoner is not a fan of the wind farm overlooking Keyser, West Virginia.

“I really don’t care for those windmills,” the 71-year-old says. “I guess I wasn’t brought up with that kind of society. Like 50 of ’em together? Who likes all that?”

It’s not just the visual contrast that Wagoner finds bothersome. She is from one of many families in Keyser—and throughout West Virginia—that relied on the coal industry for generations. Her late father worked as a railway engineer for coal trains that used to run non-stop through Keyser.

Today, those trains are an increasingly rare sight.

Not to worry; once the faltering shitlib fever-dream finally fades to black and the polity regains its collective sanity—which it assuredly will, one way or another; there’ll be no other choice when the whole shambolic sham of a shitshow has finally unraveled so entirely that the fact of its existence can no longer be denied by even the most purblind, self-deluded lackwit among us—Americans will be eager, perhaps even desperate, to avail themselves of the affordable, plentiful energy provided by proven-reliable technological improvements which shouldered their antiquated, long since abandoned predecessors aside in the first goddamned place.

There’s a very good reason this rough shoving-aside occurred many, many decades ago, a reason which guarantees that such a displacement will, in fact MUST, occur again, regardless of how frantically bawling-brat shitlibs labor to keep their benighted subjects shivering in the dark in perpetuity—cold, hungry, utterly miserable, and above all, obedient.

In 2022, the country’s first major climate policy, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, passed with the promise to speed up that transition, offering at least $4 billion to boost development of renewable projects like the Pinnacle Wind Farm in Keyser.

Huh. So let me get this straight: here we have the nation’s “first major climate policy”—smuggled in all stealthy-like under the cloak of a bit of legislative jiggery-pokery whose title makes no mention of climate policy whatsoever. Sounds kinda suspicious, no? Or maybe that’s just me, I can be overly cynical like that now and then.

Hell, forget alleviating any purely-notional climate issues, it won’t no way no how reduce inflation, even. That’s not the actual intention here, never has been—as is the case with nearly all the other bonehead boondoggles rammed down American throats via remote diktat puked forth by the Most Exalted Lord High Mucky-Mucks of far-off Mordor On The Potomac, in Congress assembled.

That law passed with the key vote of West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, but Tillman is skeptical that those benefits will reach Keyser.

“I like Joe. I talk to him a good bit. But the thing is a city like Keyser [doesn’t] ever see any of that money,” says (Keyser’s Mayor Damon) Tillman. “That money all goes to bigger cities – Morgantown, Jefferson County, Charleston. So it doesn’t do us any good.”

With all due respect, Mr Mayor, it doesn’t do any Normal American any good. Nor anybody else neither, by no means exclusive to your city and state but across the nation—with the notable exception of wily, double-dealing Congresscreatures à la le Manchin and the well-heeled schemers and bunco artists who own their ilk lock, stock and barrel. Make no mistake, s’il vous plaît: those miserable tapeworms are Manchin’s actual constituents, the people he really works for, not you ridge-running Sad Sacks stuck out there in your disgusting hinterlands hovels. Forget this at your dire peril.

No, we don’t have to like it. We DO have to face up to it, honestly, resolutely, and unflinchingly. And that right soon, lest continued foot-shuffling, mumblemouthed rationalization, and weak-kneed dithering prove to be our undoing.

Absent a Real American renaissance and concomitant renewal of a staunch, unyielding commitment to see the ideals of Her Founding restored in full and vigorously safeguarded—no negotiation, no compromise, no tit-for-tat spit-swapping with the selfsame scurvy, lying motherfuckers who, after all, stole our country from us in the first place—there can be but one denouement, a most unhappy ending to the long American story: with our integrity besmirched, our honor forsaken, our rights revoked, our liberty lost, and our children enslaved.

Linguistic hijacking

Posted on March 3, 2024March 3, 2024 by Mike 2 Comments

Words mean things. Except, of course, when they don’t.

Gender Ideology’s Verbal Engineering
I encourage you to read the entire APA page that I’ve linked to. You will look in vain for any physical symptoms; a blood test, a DNA test, even a persistent pattern of behavior that someone else might be able to verify.

This is important because it means people can define their “gender identity” any way they want. No one has solid grounds for challenging their “internal sense” of themselves. This in turn, is important because our society is in the process of creating legal rights and protections for a new category called “transgender.”

Trans Rights Activists (sometimes abbreviated to TRA) wish to impose obligations that other people owe to the “transgender” person. Before we accommodate this demand, it would be prudent to take full notice of the fact that people can define themselves into or out of this new legal category called “transgender” for any reason they want.

Let me give you some examples of some very different kinds of people who are currently wearing the “transgender” label.

The Pretender: a mediocre male athlete who says he’s a woman so he can win competitions he could not win against other male athletes. He is not the same sort of “transgender” as

The Predator: the convicted rapist who says he’s a woman so he can be housed in women’s prisons, locked into a cell with his preferred victim. He, in turn, has nothing in common with

The Autistic Teen Girl: who says she’s a boy because she sees it as a way to fit in with a group of friends who seem to like her better as a trans boy than an ordinary girl. She has something in common, but not much with

The Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoric Teen Girl who has spent too much time in internet chat rooms and becomes convinced that becoming a boy will make her happy. She has literally nothing in common with

The Adult Man who decides, after years of marriage and perhaps siring children, while secretly cross-dressing because it sexually arouses him (known as “autogynephilia”), that he is, and always has been, a woman. He, in turn has nothing in common with

The Victim of Munchausen by Proxy, the boy whose mother has been the center of lots and lots of attention since she decided he was really a girl when he was age 3. This boy most likely has nothing in common with

The Freaked Out Same Sex-Attracted Kid, including the boy who concludes it would be easier to be a transgender girl than a gay boy or the girl who concludes it would be easier to be a transgender boy than a lesbian girl. They in turn have nothing in common with

The Authentically Gender Dysphoric Teen who hates his or her body and has a distorted image of what he or she looks like. These people might have more in common with an anorexic than with some of the other people wearing the “trans” label.

Finally, let’s not forget the people sometimes called Intersexed. The proper term for them is people with Disorders of Sexual Development. These are the people who actually have one of a number of medically diagnosable conditions. Their “internal sense of themselves as male or female or something else” may influence some aspects of their treatment. But the underlying condition itself is not defined by their feelings, but by medically observable criteria. The people with Disorders of Sexual Development quickly disappear from the conversation once the transgender rights activists are finished using them to bolster their claim that “sex is not binary.”

This is why all thinking people should stop using the term “trans” or “transgender.” When one term can be used to mean eight or nine things, confusion, not clarity, will be the result. Some, perhaps most people who use these terms do so in good faith. Sincerely motivated by compassion, and misled by nonstop propaganda, using the term “trans” doesn’t actually help the people they think they are trying to help.

On the contrary, the use of these terms enables the continuation of some very deep problems. I also believe that the real movers and shakers who invented these terms know perfectly well that they’re causing weaponized ambiguity. In my next column, I will give you some pointers about what to say instead. In the meantime, stop saying “trans.”

This is as straightforward, concise, and plainspoken an analysis as I’ve ever seen anywhere on this topic, especially her insightful sorting of the increasingly (and deliberately) vague “transgender” pathology into nine specific category-types. I very much look forward to the second installment, I must say.

The Left’s brutalization of the very language we speak represents a vital chapter from the Marxist playbook for sowing societal disorder, demoralization, and, ultimately, destruction. The current “transgender” escalation is the most audacious of their Great Leaps “Forward” to date. Thankfully, indications that they may have gone too far this time are beginning to pile up out there. Normal Americans must never, ever forget that howling lunatics cannot prevail without the cooperation, whether witting or not, of the non-deranged majority.

Gibson amps are BACK, baybee!

Posted on March 3, 2024March 3, 2024 by Mike 7 Comments

Welcome news.

The Falcon Returns | Gibson Roars Back Into the Amp Game
As a “solo act,” Gibson began making amplifiers way back in 1935, summiting with the coveted yet cultish GA series amps of the early rock era, until ceasing production in 1967. Awesome amps, but unappreciated—even with cool names, such as Raider, Invader, Titan, Hawk and others. Gibson tried again in 2005, and made some wonderful-sounding amps, but through no fault of Gibson’s, the earth still did not move.

That all may change with the 2024 introduction of the Gibson Falcon 5 and Falcon 20 amps—a collaboration by Gibson and Northern California boutique-amp innovators, MESA/Boogie. Shazam!—peanut butter and jelly.

The future of the new Falcon amps is yet to be written, of course, but that future looks absolutely luminous.

Brought to the fore by Gibson’s acquisition of MESA/Boogie in 2021, the partnership was also nudged forward by a “Gibson Amp Club” within the company, the increasing values of their vintage amps and a somewhat overlooked sonic characteristic—when cranked to maximum volume, ’60s Gibson amps produce a uniquely riotous overdrive that is, in a word—ferocious.

The Falcon project was also championed by Gibson President and CEO Cesar Gueikian (who acquired a bunch of vintage examples for the company) and Vice President of Product Mat Koehler (a member of the Gibson Amp Club, a talented guitarist and an aficionado of the ’60s-era Gibson GA-19RVT amp).

“The MESA/Boogie acquisition basically added a layer where it was like, ‘Why would we not do the new amps with Boogie?’” explained Koehler.

Boogie’s contribution to the dynamic duo is two legends in the field of guitar amplification—Founder, President and Designer Randy Smith, and Director R&D Doug West. Here, West and Koehler—yes, another duo—share how the Falcon project kicked off, as well as its design strategy, tone challenges and breakthroughs.

Follows, an in-depth interview with the Koehler/West dynamic duo recounting the how’s, why’s, and wherefore’s of getting the Falcon project off the ground and soaring which is bound to be of interest to guitar amp aficionados. Certainly, the new Gibsons are serious eye-candy.

*Simple, elegant, NO master volume–now THIS is what a control panel ought to look like!*

Years ago I owned one of the vintage Gibson amps, a 57 GA-6, I think it was called. Lemmesee if I can find a…hold on…damned stupid Innarnuts…AH, here’s one!

Yep, that’s like mine, or close enough for rock and roll anyway. The Gibson was a nice enough rig for twangin’ and bangin’ at the house, but not really suitable for actual gigs in a room of any size, being way underpowered for such usage. The sound was as muddy-brown as could be: strong on the lows and low-mids, but far too weak in the higher tonal ranges to appeal to my born-and-bred-on-a-Marshall self.

As described in the interview, there’s distortion aplenty when cranked up to 11, but no real punch or presence like I’d grown accustomed to from the 100 watt Marshall half-stack I had as a teenager. In terms of the several qualities a lead guitarist needs most in an amp, the Gibson didn’t have any. That being so, the poor little Gibson box was extremely vulnerable to being completely lost in the mix onstage, particularly if the drummer had any balls at all.

Even back in their modest (not to say lackluster) heyday the Gibson amps, while a fair few jazz cats swore by ‘em, just weren’t up to bringing the rock and roll thunder, thus were left in the dust of their Fender, Marshall, Vox, and Ampeg competition—soon to wind up discontinued, forgotten, and unmourned by all but a handful of amp-collector geeks bent towards the less-pricey oddballs, orphans, and exotics of the trade.

Can’t recall when I got rid of my old Gibson amp, nor what the specifics of the deal in which it was offloaded were. Most likely, I used it as trade-bait on a gutsier amp with the kind of ferocious OOOOMPH I required. It was in mint condition the day I bought it, and same-same the day I sold/traded/whatever the hell I did with it, having lived peacefully at the house all the years I had it. Hopefully, it ended up in a good, loving home.

With the MESA/Boogie brain-trust helming the design and build, I expect Gibson’s new amplifier line will be bigly improved over the old good-but-not-great models. If so, I wish them nothing but success.

Boer insurrection, Boer inspiration

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Mike 5 Comments

A little history well worth paying attention to.

Fight or flight? A question facing Americans today – to recoil from the cities, from institutions, from society or to fight. It is a question the Boers also faced when the British gained control of South Africa in 1806.

For half a century the ununified, individualistic Boers, who just wished to just be left alone, fled. That is until the First Boer War in 1880 when for the first time, the Boers decided not to run from British oppression but to fight.

Their longing for freedom reignited – their passive resistance came to an end. Fed up with the British violating their treaties, the Boer leaders unified and declared Transvaal independent.

When British reinforcements entered Transvaal they were met by commandos who informed them they were trespassing, and to continue on would be casus belli. Disregarding the threat, the British troops took up arms and were quickly massacred, beginning the First Boer War.

Over the next month, the British under the command of Sir George Colley would attempt to relieve the besieged forts in Transvaal and would face defeat at every turn. The redcoats were no match for the superior marksmanship and guerilla warfare of the hardened Boers.

The story of the Boers is one that is relatable not just to the pioneers, the Irish or anyone else that fled their home in search of a better life and freedom, but of us, as Americans, today. We are at a crossroads.

We can flee and build new, with the hope of keeping the long arm of the “empire” at bay, or we can turn and fight. We can work to take back our cities, our institutions, our culture. Unified, working towards to same goal, we can begin chipping away.

While the Boers waited until the only solution was to take up arms, we are blessed to have other options to prevent our children, our families and our communities from the horrors of war in our backyards. The answer is not to flee, but to unify and dig in.

As y’all know, I’m much less sanguine about those “other options” than the author is, but I could easily be wrong about that…and pray to God that I am. One thing I think we can all agree on: hoping to be “just left alone” hasn’t worked out very well for us, as is almost always the case when a cozened, insufficiently-vigilant populace has permitted tyranny to take root and flourish.

Juiced up

Posted on February 29, 2024March 1, 2024 by Mike Leave a comment

Wow. I mean, just, like…WOW.

Shocking phenomenon: Alabama man struck multiple times by lightning in his lifetime, then gravesite also destroyed by lightning
Childersburg, Alabama is known as the oldest continuously occupied settlement in America. The city, which sits just 37 miles southeast of Birmingham was settled in 1540.

Legends and lore have passed through generations over the years, but one story, in particular, is a bit shocking.

William Yeldell Cosper was struck by lightning at least five times. However, two of those times were after death.

Born to the Rev. James Berry Cosper and Sarah H. Dejournett Cosper in 1844, Cosper would live for over seven decades before succumbing to his fate.

Rumor has it that Cosper survived being struck by lighting the first time. He was sitting on his front porch at the time. He was injured and it took time for him to recover. According to gravesite records, his wife, Martha Carolina Butts Cosper, helped nurse him back to health.

However, he had already had a close call before. A month prior to the strike that hit him, he and Martha were sitting in the front room of their house, spinning wool. A lightning bolt struck the wool, setting it on fire.

Certified Broadcast Meteorologist JP Dice said when a person is struck by lightning, injuries can vary.

“You can see someone’s heart stop because of the disruption of the electrical signals that drive the heart,” Dice said. “They can be revived by CPR in some cases. Also, when they are struck by lightning, there can be severe burns. A bolt of lightning can be over 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hotter than the surface of the sun.”

There are no details on what Cosper’s injuries were, but he is thought to have had a short recovery. Not long after recovering from the shocking event, Cosper was inside his home in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, when it happened again.

Historical accounts do not reveal exactly where Cosper was in the house but this time, he would not survive the lightning strike. According to death records, Cosper died in 1919. He was 74 or 75 years old.

Cosper’s body was brought back to where he was born and he was buried in the Childersburg Cemetery.

And that’s when things started getting REALLY weird. All in all, a perfect opportunity for two (2) appropriate Tune Damage embeds, I do believe.

(Via Irish)

Update! A fun little Behind The Music story the first vid reminded me of, which I just cannot resist sharing with y’all. I’ll tuck it below the fold, so as not to annoy the non-guitar amp geeks who aren’t interested in this sort of arcana.

Continue reading “Juiced up” →

“I Know How to Fix Our Political System. Hear Me Out”

Posted on February 29, 2024February 29, 2024 by Mike 2 Comments

It’s our dear old friend Stephen Green, who is always worth lending an ear. Although I can’t say I agree with him in every last particular.

I have yet another idea about how to save our Republic — and before we even get started, you’re welcome.

Every elected official — from my small-town mayor to the President of the United States — should be issued a seriously cool-looking sword. Sharp, too.

Higher-level appointees from White House cabinet officers down to that slow-moving jerk at the County Clerk’s office would each be issued a sword of their own.

Anybody running an HOA would get one, too, despite the risks.

The more important the office, the shinier and fancier the sword. I figure by the time we get up to, say, the Speaker of the House, they’d get a sword so bejeweled that Inigo Montoya’s father would be embarrassed to craft it.

But, man, would the thin-skinned attention whores who crave authority love carrying those things around.

You think I’m being silly. I’m not.

How our betters behave when carrying their swords would teach us valuable lessons about them. I imagine a guy like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) would look a little sheepish carrying one, and that would make me like him even more.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), fond as she is of drink on occasion, would probably have a few too many one Friday afternoon, lunge her sword at a staffer who displeased her, but end up falling down and cutting herself. And that would make me like her even more, too.

Okay, I’m A-okay with that part. But sorry, I ain’t so much down with handing out swords willy-nilly to FederalGovCo bureaucrats and/or cabinet officials in the expectation that they’ll have the decency to hurl themselves upon them in paroxysms of grief-stricken remorse as atonement for their myriad fuck-ups. Not gonna happen, I’m afraid; sorry, but they’ll have to be pushed. Which, y’know, I AM down with, one hundred percent.

An alternative proposal, which I muchly prefer: Equip the citizenry with swords, perhaps local and state officials in rock-ribbed Red locales ONLY, and encourage the whole motley crew to mob up and send those Fed fuck-knuckles scurrying in affrighted anticipation of the use to which those keen-edged blades might be put should their angry pursuers prove to be fleeter of foot.

HOA Oberst-Gruppenführers? Oh, HELL no. Those nosy, insufferably smarmy Church Ladies are already pain in the ass aplenty; issuing them swords would only make them worse.

Somehow it got by me until now, but Stephen offers another bright idea which seems like it might likewise be worth implementing.

Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™ might recognize this as a fancier version of my alternative to term limits, the Take An Oath of Office, Lose a Finger Amendment — and you’d be right.

But I ask, why think small? Let’s do both.

For the Republic.

Absolutely—without even knowing the specific ins and outs of it, this LaFA deal sounds pretty dang schweet to me.

The final nail

Posted on February 29, 2024February 29, 2024 by Mike 3 Comments

If nominated, he will not be permitted to run. If “elected,” he will not be permitted to serve.

Democrats Signal They Might Not Certify A Trump Win In 2024
Numerous House Democrats have signaled that they would not certify a 2024 presidential election win from Donald Trump, relying on the 14th Amendment to claim Trump is an insurrectionist and thus ineligible from holding office.

Democrats including Reps. James Clyburn (SC), Jamie Raskin (MD), Adam Schiff (CA), Eric Swalwell (CA), and even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies refused to say that they would confirm Trump to office if he won the 2024 election.

As Dan McLaughlin explained at National Review, Democrats could have the votes to sustain an objection to a Trump win if they take control of the House. “Only a simple majority is required, and unlike when the House chooses a president under the Twelfth Amendment, they don’t vote by states,” he wrote. “Unlike in 2016 or 2004, when they were in the minority, House Democrats could be playing with live ammunition.”

Still, a majority of senators would have to object to a Trump win, too. This would likely take 51 senators, and as McLaughlin pointed out, this would be a tough task for Democrats: They “either have to hold every seat they currently occupy (good luck in West Virginia), or take a Republican-held seat (the bluest of which is either Ted Cruz’s in Texas or Rick Scott’s in Florida),” he said.

Or, y’know, peel off a couple of numerous phonus-balonus Vichy GOPe RINOs in the ranks to go along with it. And if you think for one micro-millisecond that the Uniparty combine would hesitate to go to such extreme lengths to maintain their iron grip on power, then you’re as obstinately, willfully blind to the current realities of political life in Amerika v2.0 as Trump himself appears to be. Statements/promises/threats like these make it painfully clear that our leaders Masters no longer deem it necessary to bother themselves with even paying lip service to “the consent of the governed” anymore.

Update! Still think they’re not serious, just joking around here? Better think again.

Poll: If Donald John Trump is granted immunity by the Supreme Court of the United States, should Joe Biden remain seated and become Americas first dictator to prevent Trump from doing the same?

YES / NO / Comment:

— Lara reads banned books in Florida (@MadeInTheUSANJ)

February 28, 2024

As Divemedic suggests, scan a few of the unanimously-enthusiastic responses before you dismiss it all with a wave of the hand as just more unhinged online ranting from the extremist fringe. These people are real-life True Believers, as real as real gets; there are one hell of a lot of them who would dearly love to see it happen, and they are way, way more numerous than most on Our Side begins to imagine. At the risk of sounding like a broken record: They will not stop. They will never stop. They will have to BE stopped.

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