Hey y’all, watch this!

Sundry useful info

Posted on April 19, 2021April 19, 2021 by Mike 2 Comments

First off, I should mention my own Gab addy, even though I don’t post much there; frankly, I haven’t even spent enough time in the joint to know all the ins and outs of how the thing works. But for whatever it might be worth, here I is. From there, we hop over to the Sooper Seekrit FlammenWurfer Klub, which is basically the hangout for former commenters and other friends/fans of the hallowed Western Rifle Shooters Association websty, with which you will no doubt be acquainted. And from there, we move right along to this, posted by SooperSekrit member ZeroGov, whose name is also a familiar one.

Gentlemen, the root cause of all totalitarian movements is a lust for power over other human beings in commanding their lives and extracting their labor. A proximate cause that enables this is fear and obedience on the part of the potential serfs who must have their willingness to obey reinforced and their willingness not to comply erased.

If we accept these premises, we start to understand why woketopia is the asymmetric employment of collective stereotyping to set sub-groups against one another so they lose sight of the root cause that informs their submission.

The collectivists need two vital elements to set this in motion and maintain the swirl: a talking and reading culture that does not tolerate any moral and intellectual dissent from a monochromatic communist world-view and a vast informant culture that eventually becomes a self-perpetuating blame and grievance machine that runs under its own power.

Not to mention that since their positions are wholesale and in detail morally and intellectually indefensible they must shout down and shut down opposing voices.

That is what you are seeing around you today and why…

But there will be outliers on the bell curve who will fight either overtly or covertly and while the story of totalitarianism is that all the systems die in the end, the decades of misery and agony are suffered by hundreds of millions.

What gift will you give your children?

Discuss or prove me wrong.

Buppert’s post then garners a response.

There isn’t a proving you wrong. We as a country/culture are at an impasse. There isn’t reconciliation. What does it matter to assign blame or discuss ad nauseum. This is a divorce of cultures. Yet it isn’t just America, those across the planet who enjoyed a wee flavor of our freedoms, envied our world, are now becoming enslaved more by the day. England looks like the movie Brazil, a sci fi dystopian future of government over reach.

“dont suspect a friend, report him”

Fear is weaponized against everyone so that many act in fear. Yet it is not fear that motivates those calling themselves patriots, no, when it was time to be afraid no one listened. Now its a resignation. I’ve been divorced. I’ve seen that lifeless cold countenance directed at me from the one I so loved, would have died for. One in whom I invested immeasurable effort and sacrifice. One in whose eyes I saw a thousand sunsets. I saw that countenance and resigned. There was no hope, no future, no reconciliation. That in my opinion would be the mature patriot.

Resignation from the order of things citing irreconcilable differences.

What gift will I give my children? Freedom.

His lips, God’s ears. If you ain’t on Gab yourself yet, go sign up, follow Tommygunmike’s worthless ass, then join the SSFK group. You’ll be glad you did it, on at least two of those suggestions anyway.

Publick Notice

Posted on March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 by Mike

Imagine my surprise and gratification to learn that my “Creepy Nation” post from the other day has gotten itself re-posted at both Occasion2B and The Burning Platform. Thanks much, guys; I’m flattered, and sincerely appreciate y’all’s kind attention.

Social media preferences

Posted on March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 by Mike

Gab rules, Parler drools.

Why Parler sucks, and why Gab is superior
I hate social media, but I’ve had accounts on Gab, Parler, and Twitter for about a year, so I’ve used them enough to get a feel for the usability and member engagement. I’ve been in the software development world in various capacities for almost thirty years, so I have some opinions on how things work in this space and what’s possible.

At this point, sadly, I think Parler is a bad joke. If someone got me into meeting to hear a pitch for a conservative-friendly platform modeled after Parler, in 2020, I’d throw them out of my office and probably fire the person who set up the meeting. I’ve been supportive of Brad Parscale, but I have no idea what in the hell he’s thinking here.

I don’t have a dog in this fight, and have nothing against Parler itself. I would love an alternative to Gab that would give the President another platform he could use to communicate with us, but right now, Gab seems to be the only platform that could accommodate the scale and functionality required by the President to move from Twitter.

As y’all no doubt are aware, I share this guy’s feelings about mainstream SM, so don’t have a dog in this fight myself. In fact, some of you folks might be wondering why I’m bothering with this topic at all, considering my complete disinterest in it. The next ‘graph will help explain.

Twitter is like the once-hard core rocker who used to play heavy-metal music and bang chicks all night, but ten years later is cruising the truck stop looking for a driver to blow to get a ride back to CHAZ. It’s sad to see what they’ve become.

Okay, I damned near busted a gut over that one. My overall apathy towards SM aside, I was casting idly about to find out whether I could replace Trump’s long-since-defunct Twitter feed over in the sidebar with Soopersekret’s Gab one. I had no idea whether it was possible to embed a Gab feed, honestly. And I still don’t, due to being sidetracked by the above post. I know you can’t embed individual Gab posts, so probably not.

Either way, sometime this evening I’ll either replace Trump’s unjustly-extinguished Twitter feed or remove it and leave that space unoccupied. There’s no point in leaving the dead feed up, so it’s gone in any event. I’ll likely have other site news over the next few days as well, some of which I’m pretty dang excited about. It’s been a rockin’ week so far, I must say.

Update! Okay, Trump feed gone, Trump Jr’s embedded. As Bill said when he did the same, Trump The Younger certainly isn’t Trump The Lesser; from what I’ve seen of the kid, he’s more pugnacious and unabashed than Trump is, which is saying something. Junior’s feed might very well, uhhh, Trump his old man’s.

Publick Notice

Posted on March 13, 2021March 13, 2021 by Mike

Expect blogging to be sparse over the next several days, as I have just received some intriguing emails notifying me that not only are beautiful, sexy Russian girls acutely interested in meeting me, but Asian ones are as well. Apparently there’s an unexpected shortage of old, sickly, unattractive, and penurious American white males afflicting those locales, which has led to quite a surge in demand. As you can readily imagine, I’m going to need to spend some time investigating this most welcome development, in case my luck has finally turned.

KIDDING. I’m only kidding here, folks. Now, as is reputedly said in Hell: Coffee break’s over, everybody back on your heads.

Winter Wonderland

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Ironbear

My neighborhood looks like a Christmas card today:

I’ll bet we got every bit of the 5″ of snow they were predicting.

The birds didn’t even wait until I went back in the house to hit the birdseed after I refilled the feeders.

Ulric got over his distaste for all this white shit by this afternoon, and was running back and forth in it like he’d grown up a sled dog.

I swear! That BBQ grill cover just jumped into the shot from outta nowhere!

But remember, kids: Snowfalls are now a thing of the past.

Publick Notice

Posted on February 14, 2021February 15, 2021 by Mike

So after many months of stalling and dithering on my part—leading to a good swift boot in the ass from a good friend of mine who has appointed himself my partner in this venture, so as to goad me into finally doing something I’ve been extremely reluctant to do—I am, umm, pleased to announce that all the pieces are now in place allowing me to get to work in earnest on Ye Olde RadioCF Podcaste. Meaning, all the necessary startup gear has been rounded up; I’ve put together an archive page for the thing; cobbled together some theme music; settled on vital conceptual minutiae like format and features, etc. I’m even now working on some rough script outlines and trying to figure out how said hardware works, and expect to begin actual recording in about two weeks or so.

We’ll see how it all goes, I reckon. It’s gonna be audio only, at least for now and most likely permanently, since I have no wish to inflict my scarifying elderly visage on anyone via video, and it would only be just me and another guy sitting around talking anyway. It won’t be all politics all the time either, not a-tall. At the moment, the plan is to include:

A regular music segment, with recordings and historical tidbits featuring old blues, rockabilly, country, and maybe classic rock
A regular American history segment, with brief bios and quotes from the Founders, analysis and discussion of their intentions, maybe some overview of the Constitution and how our goobermint is supposed to work, as contrasted with the toxic sludge-pit we’re currently cursed by
A regular political/current events rant, which will probably be a bit lengthier timewise than the rest
The occasional celebrity and/or public-figure interview, as and when
Occasional random odds ‘n’ ends about old Fords, old Harleys, old guitars and amps, Snap-On tools, and whatever else pops up
Other stuff (???)

I also really dig the idea of throwing in some fake interviews, kinda-sorta stealth comedy a la the great Phil Hendry, a guy I used to love listening to back in my truck-driving years. It was always a toss-up as to which aspect of the Hendry schtick was more gut-bustingly hilarious: the goofball characters Hendry would (self-)interview, or the rubes who called in to froth and rave in objection to the outlandish, made-up flakes and freaks Hendry had just suckered them with so slyly. Hell, there were times when I wasn’t quite sure myself if an interview was on the level, although as the night wore on and things started to get progressively more chaotic and out of hand the hoax became obvious, and was all the funnier for it. Successfully aping Hendry might well be beyond my ability, I confess; I am by no means the talented professional comic Hendry is, not even close. Again: we’ll see.

Per the advice of a certain other buddy of mine—an experienced and well-connected broadcast media pro who is responsible for pushing me in the podcast direction in the first place—the schedule calls for one thirty (30) minute RadioCF ep per week. New installments will probably drop on Wednesday evenings, or perhaps Fridays. Or Mondays. As you can see, that part is still up in the air. But we’ll definitely be sticking to a regular release shedule once things get cranking.

Anyways, there ya have it. I’ve never had the slightest interest in podcasts for some odd reason, either doing ’em myself or listening to ’em. In truth, I’ve only ever listened to precisely one of the blasted things, which was an interview by the above-mentioned media-connected friend with legendary rock and roll producer Rodney Mills, who as it happens was also the engineer/producer on the BPs live rekkid, One Nite of Sin.

In the end, the only way I could finally bring myself to go ahead an attempt a podcast of my own was by using the old radio shows done by iconic Golden Age platter jockeys such as Murray the K or the insanely brilliant Pete “Mad Daddy” Myers as my guide and model.

The whole idea here, then, will be to maintain my own interest in this project and keep things fresh for one and all via refusing to recognize any restrictions on subject matter, concept, or anything else. There may be some wild ideas expressed, or well-outside-the-mainstream points of view presented. There may be music you don’t much care for, other things you may find offensive or obnoxious. I can pretty much guarantee there will be cussin’.

That’s the real beauty of podcasting, though. As with the Innarnuts entire, there ARE no restrictions. It’s the Wild West plus Mardi Gras times Mad Max—no limits, no hidden surcharge, no holds barred. Likewise, I am under NO “fair play” obligations; there is no “equal time” rule I’m aware of for podcasts. So you can safely assume that, except for purposes of ridicule and insult, Leftism will have no home here, to stab them with their own lazy lackwitticism. Hopefully, we can come up with a show each week that’s fun, interesting, rollicking, even informative for y’all CF miscreants and scoundrels to enjoy. Once more: we’ll see how it goes.

Santa came early this year

Posted on December 24, 2020December 24, 2020 by Mike

And left a lovely new header in the CF stocking for us. Featuring a classic Yuletide photo of legendary pinup Queen Betty Page, painstakingly customized by yours truly, it’s a gift that’s guar-o-nteed to enliven Christmas morn for one and all. If you ask me, Betty’s so delish she could set even the most stubborn old Grinch’s cold heart aflame, nekkid or fully clothed. But hey, YMMV, although it really shouldn’t, and I can’t condone it.

Should some drooling, artless clodhopper out there find our delectable Betty Claus not to their taste, incomprehensibe as that is, please don’t tell me about it. I just couldn’t bear knowing that there are any such philistines among us. However, If you dislike both Betty AND Scrooge Picard DO let me know so’s I can take steps to permanently bar you from these environs posthaste. You’re almost certainly some kind of gummint agent provocateur, and I need them skulking around here like I need a great big boil on my butt.

Publick Notice

Posted on November 23, 2020November 23, 2020 by Mike

Sorry for the extended absence ’round here, folks; we suffered a home internet outage over the last few days, thanks to the cable box atop the utility pole getting filled up with water from the recent heavy rains—a phenomenon the Spectrum repair dude swore he’d never seen before. We’re back up and running now, so tonight after work I can begin the laborious process of clearing out the ten or twenty open tabs I’ve been saving up on my phone for ranting purposes. If the posts over the next day or two seem somewhat, shall we say, dated—well, now you’ll know why, at least.

Publick Notice

Posted on November 14, 2020November 14, 2020 by Mike

I’m gonna ahead and work on getting good ol’ Scrooge Picard up and running, while I have a free minute here. Expect weirdness, that’s all I’m sayin’, for a little bit anyway.

Yeah, the old boy is visiting us early this year, but what the hell; I like him, and I think we could all use a little Christmas cheer at this stage. Just think of it as my own upraised middle finger in the direction of our goosestepping dimestore dictators and their sick little holiday clampdown attempt.

New merch update

Posted on November 10, 2020November 10, 2020 by Mike

Barry mentioned in comments that he wasn’t all that enamored with black tee’s, which mystifying, irrational bigotry I will never pretend to comprehend. But as well as continuing the work on several other designs, I’m gonna do a version of the “Revolt” image that’s suitable for display on a lighter-colored shirt as well just in case anyone else out there shares Barry’s ugly prejudice. I’ll keep ya posted, natch.

Publick Notice

Posted on November 9, 2020November 9, 2020 by Mike

So as I was mulling our current sorry pass over earlier today, out of the blue I was struck by visions of a cpl-three new T-shirt design ideas for Ye Olde CF Emporium, one of which I’ve already put together a first draft of:

No situation so grave that some asshole won’t try to turn a buck off of it, eh? More to come as and when, folks. If the mood prompts ya, feel free to sing this one’s praises or condemn it as an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle in the comments, whichever suits.

Helloween

Posted on October 30, 2020October 30, 2020 by Mike

DAMMIT, I only realized on the way home from work that I had completely spaced on activating the CF Halloween theme this year. And given the insane amount of tweaking that will be required to bring the tired old thing even nominally into line with the more recent WP versions, it ain’t likely it’s going to make an appearance this year, alas.

On the bright side, however, it’s a matter of a paltry few days now until our beloved Scrooge Picard rears his top-hatted pate once more around these parts—since I blew off Halloween, I’m gonna inaugurate CF’s traditional holiday makeover early than ever this annum to make up to the CF Faithful. No need to thank me, folks. While you’re waiting, enjoy yourselves some spooky TuneDamage.

Not at all a Baroque-period guy myself, being the confirmed Classical/Romantic era man that I am. But could there possibly be a more fitting way to kick off our Spooky TuneDamage session than Bach’s legendary Toccata and Fugue?

Well, unless maybe it’s Chopin’s world-famous Funeral March, that is. Now let’s shift gears.

Back in my punk-rock halcyon days, I loved the Dead Kennedys all to pieces, and the lyrics of this one in particular spoke to my very soul. Why not every day/Are you so afraid/What will people say? indeed.

Sure, I could very easily have taken the easy way out and tossed up Boris and the Crypt Kicker Five’s classic “Monster Mash” to close things out, like any ordinary blogger certainly would have. But predictability and obviousness ain’t why you guys hang around here in the first place, I figger. Not that there’s anything at all wrong with “Monster Mash,” I hasten to add. But we’ve all heard it enough times, and Gene Simmons’ rollicking, lesser-known little finger-snapper sounds fresh and fun in comparison.

Now to get back to seeing if there’s anything I can do to fit the old Helloween theme into a fresh new WP framework. In case you haven’t seen it or don’t remember it, the theme’s feature image was done up special for me by the seriously amazing American artist Coop, so I’m gonna do my damnedest to make this thing work here.

Update! It occurred to me, in light of the H-ween theme’s shortcomings, that I maybe oughta check up on Scrooge Picard’s overall operability just as a precautionary measure. And wouldn’tcha know it, looks like that one’s gonna need some re-working also—thereby sending any chance of getting Coop’s Helloween masterpiece into usable condition this weekend a-swirling right down the ol’ drain, dammit.

Is that a tin cup I hear rattling?

Posted on September 22, 2020September 28, 2020 by Mike

Could I possibly pick a more inopportune time for a Fall Fundraiser? What with the on-purpose and with-malice-aforethought derailing of the Trump economic juggernaut via unnecessary lockdowns; widespread civil unrest and violence; open revolutionary maneuvering from the more treacherous of our two political parties, and such-like unprecedented national angst, mounting a successful fundraiser would seem to be an extremely dubious proposition at the very best. For anybody, much less me.

But needs must, alas. Among other calamitous modern problems currently dogging the Casa CF balance sheet, I have an automobile engine-swap that badly needs doing most ricky-tick, something I dasn’t tackle my own self—lacking as I do both the equipment and the upper-blody strength to pull the job off without ending up squished flatter than a Joe Biden speech, a Ford 2.0-liter i4 cuddling snugly atop my chest and/or skull. I’ll have to hire the job done, to my eternal shame and disgrace as a proud, lifelong gearhead.

On the brighter side, I’ve been checking the local salvage yards, and there are a few compatible junkyard-mills to be had for as little as three hundred bucks. These motors all come with the reassurance and peace of mind that only an ironclad thirty-day guarantee can bring, so assumedly aren’t cursed with any of the same broken timing chains, bent valves, and maybe even holed piston-domes that combined to leave me stranded and forlorn on northbound I-85’s Brookshire off-ramp just over a month ago.

So yeah, we’ll just plunge on ahead with Ye Olde CF Blogge’s Fall Begathon nonetheless, and be damned to omens heralding the possibility of a lackluster outing. I didn’t do a Spring fundie the last two years, an event that had been more or less of a regular thing in years previous. So what the heck, this one’s actually overdue when you really think about it, right?

The PayPal “Support” link over there in the right sidebar awaits whatever alms y’all generous souls might be able to scrounge up and toss into the battered ol’ hat, even the most miserly of which will be very humbly appreciated by Ye Olde Blogge Hoste. I’ll leave this announcement up top for the remainder of the week, and hope for the best. Thanks, gang!

CF Emporium coming together

Posted on September 3, 2020September 3, 2020 by Mike

I’m slowly but surely getting Ye Olde CF Shoppe populated with mercantile goods many and varied; getting ready to go to work on the female-oriented clothing now, with an eye towards casting as big a net as possible here. I mean, DUDE: license plate frames? Keychains? It appears the sky’s the limit with this stuff. I mean, SRSLY, people—how could anybody not love this?

Also looking to work the CFE image in the sidebar over a bit too, I think, maybe even try to find a way to offer a rotating set of product images along with it via javascript. That is to say, I know it can be done; what’s unclear is whether it can done by me.

A question, though: a couple of you folks have mentioned having already made a purchase from the CFE, but I have yet to find the place in the store CP that logs and tracks such things. If anybody out there has prior experience enough with CafePress to know about that, do feel free to clue me in, willya? That is all for now, thankee muchee.

Update! Hrmph. Already I can see I need to do more original designs here. LOTS more.

Publick notice

Posted on August 31, 2020August 31, 2020 by Mike

Okay, got the brand new Cold Fury Emporium up and running, more or less, although it’s quite sparsely populated at the moment. I need to put an image and link over in the right sidebar next, which will be happening anon. I’ll be adding more products over the next days and weeks as well, of course, after which will begin the long, arduous process of tweaking the shop’s appearance and layout until my compulsive fumble-fucking around has utterly ruined the thing’s ability to function forever.

Because hey, that’s what I am, it’s what I do. I’m famous amongst those who know me best for the ingrained inability to leave anything alone, I do admit it. Seems to be in my DNA.

Also, for those of y’all who have noticed a certain, shall we say, inconstancy in posting the new Donnybrook each week…well, see, there’s a reason for that. After the first few weeks, I noticed that comments were usually topping out around 35 or so for each installment, which number seemed to me to be a fine point to put the old, tired post to bed and crank up a new one. So I’ve decided to wait until each Donnybrook reaches around thirty to thirty-five comments, which I consider reasonable enough, and then replacing it. God help me should this hogwallow ever start to get into the frenetically stratospheric comment numbers some other sites out there do. I wouldn’t know whether to shit or go blind at that point, honestly, and would probably just collapse into a gibbering, catatonic heap.

Rises again

Posted on August 30, 2020August 30, 2020 by Mike

So in our latest Donnybrook installment, SteveF suggests putting out some CF merch, with kenny and Barry offering their dittos in support. He but little realized I was way ahead of him, long years ago. As I replied:

Actually, I did have, but it got to be too much to keep up with, honestly. Sales started off pretty brisk–they WERE nice shirts and stickers, if I do say so myself–but that meant I was always late getting orders packed and shipped and such-like folderol. So some years back I set up a CafePress store, uploaded the designs and all that, put up a sidebar link, and…didn’t sell a one, or not that I know of. Now I’ve completely forgotten the login and pass to the damned thing, and…well, heck, you’re right, I need to start all over again with the whole merch thing, don’t I?

I then threatened to dig up the old designs (I was rather proud of of ’em, actually) and post them here because hey, why the hell not. I still have a box of the actual shirts stored someplace or other, but the stickers I had made were snapped up pretty quick, I’m afraid; I gots no clue where the P-shop files for them might have wandered off to, alas. But here are the shirt designs:

My own personal fave, on a light beige/off-white shirt.

Why yes, that DOES look an awful lot like I might’ve appropriated the H-D bar and shield just a wee mite for the front of this one, don’t it?

The black one was front-only, nothing on back.

There were three, count ’em, 3 shirt designs, with a small image on front and a bigger one on back. I still have one of ’em myself, a faded, threadbare example fit only for working on motorcycles, painting living rooms, puppy-training, and whatnot.

Actually, looking at these things now, they seem to be reconstructions of the originals; the “Anger management” shirt is the one I still have, and the font above isn’t the same at all. If you’ll notice, too, the orange color on the front design is way different than the “Anger management” side. Also, I don’t remember the black one having any kind of slogan on it at all, just Angry Guy, the CF logo, and the “Harshing your etc” motto. But I could easily be all wet on that one. I need to scrounge up that box of shirts and check one of these days, I reckon. Pretty sure I know where it is. Pretty sure.

I liked the CafePress store, I must say. It made the whole enterprise one hell of a lot easier on me, plus I could offer things like coffee mugs and mouse pads—items I would never have been able to afford having printed up and then only selling a handful of them. Yeah, the price was/is a lot higher with CP, and the profit margin slimmer. Maybe that’s the reason I never sold a damned thing with it.

If I can find that ol’ box of shirts, assuming they haven’t gone all moldy and mildewy or been gnawed by vermin over lo, these many years, maybe we could have some sort of CF contest with those as the prizes or something. Might be just the thing to help celebrate the imminent 19th (!!!) birthday (9/14/01, if I recall correctly) of this here den of internet iniquity, no?

Oh yeah, here’s the image for the sidebar link to Ye Olde CF Mercantile Shoppe, just for grins ‘n’ giggles:

Yes, I actually did have honest-to-goodness shopping cart software set up and functional, while it lasted. The CF Shop was the first online store I ever built—OSCommerce, I believe, is what I used for running the backend of the thing. In fact, I was happy enough with OSCommerce that I used it several times afterwards for other commercial sites I worked on as well. Kind of a steep learning curve initially, or seemed so to my dumb ass, anyway. But not too bad, and once you got it all sussed out it was easy-peasy.

All in all the OSC software worked great: almost astoundingly customizable and tweakable; completely reliable; and readily adaptable to most any kind of online store you might wish to use it for, from music or audiobook downloads to (probably) amateur Pr0n (I’m guessing). Plus, it was also, y’know, free. Lots of useful plugins available for it too, most of those also free. If you’re thinking of setting up an e-commerce site, you could do a lot worse than OSC. I endorse the heck out of it.

Update! DANG, those images are big! Need to get into P-shop and shrink ’em down a bit. Sorry for all that bandwidth wastage, peeps.

Restored Kipling

Posted on August 23, 2020August 23, 2020 by Mike

Well, I have no idea what the hell that was about, but over the weekend my brand-new Kipling sub-page seems to have got et somehow. Naturally, since I built the thing in the WP-native, server-based code editor instead of my usual third-party blogging software, I had no backup for it. So I just reconstructed it more or less from scratch, with a few modifications here and there.

And oddly enough, I now note that there are actually a good few recent posts that have gone missing, including the original Kipling notification. This all happened after I updated WordPress and a couple of plugins Friday, which must be the cause, although I can’t imagine why such a thing would happen, and it never has before. I’ll see about restoring them all, although I’ll bet anything the associated comments are gone for good. Very bizarre—and after last year’s mysterious and crippling Rooskie hack, damned alarming, too.

Update! Okay, last Thursday night’s posts restored, comments for said posts lost forever, just as I feared. Now I’m worried that this is an indication of some unwelcome malefactor skulking about inside my site CP, rather than merely some odd WP glitch. And I ain’t digging that thought at all.

Do you Kipple?

Posted on August 20, 2020August 23, 2020 by Mike

The more astute among y’all miscreants, reprobates, and guttersnipes will no doubt have noticed a shiny, brand-new link up there in the masthead links bar called simply, “Kipling.” What the hell, you may have wondered, that seems…odd. Well, from the sub-page the link attaches to, here’s your explanation:

It would be no more than apt to call Rudyard Kipling the de facto poet laureate of the American warrior caste, along with their British cousins and a few others. Professional military men who are in the know revere him for his deep understanding of not only the eternal human condition, but of the human spirit as well. His writing is as sharp as a razor, as elegant as tulips in bloom, and as uncompromising as a punch in the mouth. Better still, the reasons soldiers so love his brilliant work—the reasons I do myself, and always have—are the self-same ones why shitlibs everywhere absolutely loathe him.

He saw clearly the obvious superiority of Western thinking, of the culture wrought by it. He was an unapologetic colonialist; the seemingly eternal sorriness of the state of affairs in most of their colonies long years after the Brits granted them their independence would seem to validate those views somewhat, to say the least. The professorial Left, in their reflexive hatred for not only Kipling but for all things colonial, has led them to almost entirely write him out of the canon of English literature; when they’re forced to mention him at all, it is only ever in the most bitterly disparaging and contemptuous of terms.

Which, as far as I’m concerned, is as robust a recommendation for him as I can possibly imagine. If you haven’t read Kipling yet, prepare yourself for a real treat, a total delight. If you have read him, but not lately, enjoy renewing your acquaintance with one of the finest writers ever gifted to the world by English-language poesy. I confess to being somewhat embarrassed that, after nineteen years toiling away in the blogging saltmines here, it only just now occurred to me how richly he merits a place on this websty. I can only beg that y’all accept my shamefaced apologies for such a grievous oversight.

A complete listing of Kipling’s poetry can be found here. Enjoy, folks.

My title above is a common ice-breaker question among military men, at least according to John Ringo, who oughta know. The page is now live, but without any poems on it at the moment. I’m gonna be working on that tonight, and probably for some little time to come yet too, I imagine, as I dive into the great man’s copious archive and remember some old treasures that I’d forgotten. Not sure how many I’m gonna post on the Kipling subpage as of yet; it’s gonna be one of those deals where I’ll find it hard to leave anything out. With Kipling, too much is never enough. Like I said: enjoy.

Publick Notice

Posted on July 11, 2020July 11, 2020 by Mike

I’ve noticed of late a sudden influx of what appear to be spurious user registrations hereabouts. My suspicions were aroused by 1) bizarre-looking usernames with a bunch of numbers in ’em, which almost nobody does in my long experience, and 2) a crap-ton of email addresses from questionable locales like thepartyzone.org, or viodehead.info and such-like.

Not at all wanting to put up with a repeat of the crippling hack that totally hosed the site for a couple of months last winter, a total catastrophe that rendered fucking 19 years’ worth of archives radioactive—ie, too hot to risk reinstating them without spending a mind-boggling amount of time sifting through the databases to remove any sinister-looking code still lurking about, time I simply do not have—I’m taking the simpler route of dumping the shady users before they can find a way to exceed their user-limitations and bring this place crashing down again.

That said, it’s entirely possible (if not damned likely) that in the course of this precautionary housekeeping I’ll delete a legit user or three that hasn’t caused any problems and harbors no ill intent. So if that sounds like you and you should find yourself 86’d unjustly, please do shoot me an email and I’ll cheerfully reinstate you, with my humblest apologies for the error.

Update! Hrmm. Wonder who this “Ferrous Ursine” character might be? Sure sounds like a miscreant to me…

Publick notice

Posted on June 3, 2020June 3, 2020 by Mike

Light posting will likely continue through the rest of the week, due to the onset of one damned thing after another that seems to constitute life at Totleigh Towers. Which is too bad, really, because at the moment I have about thirty open tabs in the Brave browser, just sitting there waiting for me to unleash my wrathful attention on ’em. This sudden tsunami of truly historical events of late threatens to drown Ye Olde Blogghoste in neglected blog-fodder here, I admit.

After a couple of days to mull it over, I’m thinking the best way to handle our new Daily Donnybrook open thread is to refresh it a couple times a week—putting up a new one, say, every Tuesday and Friday or Saturday. I’m definitely grateful to the folks who recommended doing it, if only for the sudden influx of BBQ recipes and the like in the comments; from that, it’s easy to envision this thing turning into something very damned useful indeed around this place.

Anyways, back when I can, as I can, folks. Oh, and here’s a neat little bit of arcana about that London Calling album cover some of y’all might not have heard about before:

It all began on the 20th September 1979. On that day, in Palladium club in New York took place the concert of a British rock group, The Clash. During the concert, the upset bassist wrecked his guitar on the scene, and the moment was captured on photography by Pennie Smith. Thanks to this photo, one of the most famous album covers in the history of rock came to existence.

The final version of the cover was designed by Ray Lowry. Pennie Smith at first didn’t want to allow the use of her photo, arguing that it’s blurry. Lowry convinced her that the lack of focus was in this case a good thing, as it made it more authentic and spontaneous.

London Calling cover quickly became famous all over the world. It was a pastiche, meaning a conscious reference to another piece. Lowry used composition and lettering similar to Elvis Presley’s earlier (RCA debut) album. It was a bit provocative, as Elvis was acclaimed back then as the king of rock and the less famous band The Clash was only about to begin another revolution in rock music, but in a way more hardcore version.

There’s a pic of the Simenon P-bass aftermath, too. It wound up in about the condition you’d expect, alas.

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