Believe it or Else

Unkinked, unserious

Posted on March 21, 2022March 21, 2022 by Mike

Or, as Arthur labels it, Justice for Cornrows.

House passes CROWN Act, banning race-based hair discrimination
The House passed legislation on Friday that would prohibit discrimination against people with hair styles associated with a particular race or national origin.

Lawmakers passed the bill, titled the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, or CROWN, Act, largely along party lines, 235-189. Only 14 Republicans joined Democrats in support of the measure.

Don’t ever let it be said that the US Congress can’t, or won’t, tackle the truly serious issues.

“For too long, Black girls have been discriminated against and criminalized for the hair that grows on our heads and the way we move through and show up in this world,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.).

Black women in particular are more likely to report feeling discriminated against because of their hairstyles.

Or just because, y’know, reasons ‘n’ shit, nomesayin? Back over to Arthur for some closing hilarity.

I love the name, the CROWN Act, cuz dey be thinking dey dreadlocks be crownz and sheeit. See also: Kangz, We Wuz.

Criminalized you say? For your hair and the way you “move through…this world”? This is a choice example of how blaque gals move through this world…

[…a few clips of random black-beeyotch violence and mayhem…]

Whenever they “show up” in the world, chaos and violence seem to follow them.

A serious nation doesn’t devote even a second of time to the “problem” of racist hair rules.

Nope. Then again, all sense of seriousness and mature propriety fled Mordor On The Potomac and its environs long, long ago, alas.

Corn for food, not for fuel

Posted on March 21, 2022March 21, 2022 by Mike

An idea whose time has come, gone, and circled all the way back ’round again.

Typically, when supply disruptions roil markets, political leaders can’t do much about it. But in the coming food crisis, the U.S. actually has a powerful policy lever. With a single bold move, the Biden administration could free up food supplies while also reversing a policy blunder that hurts consumers, increases greenhouse-gas emissions, and damages ecosystems across the U.S. It would require some political courage, but Biden could move to suspend—and push ultimately to repeal—the Renewable Fuel Standard.

nacted as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the RFS program was meant to increase U.S. fuel supplies and promote green-energy innovation by requiring that transportation fuel, heating oil, and jet fuel contain growing portions of renewable biofuels. In 2007, Congress expanded the program and set even more ambitious targets.

But problems emerged from the start. For one, the program is mind-bendingly complex, delineating four types of biofuels, setting annual targets for each, and awarding refiners various credits for meeting their “Renewable Volume Obligation.” The EPA has the authority to change or waive these rules at whim, making the program “unpredictable and arbitrary,” writes Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Mario Loyola in The Atlantic. According to one estimate, RFS “compliance alone is adding about 14 cents to refiners’ cost per gallon of gasoline and diesel.”

Though mostly invisible to the public, the RFS program affects the lives and pocketbooks of all U.S. consumers and has remade the face of American agriculture. Today, roughly one-third of U.S. soybean oil production is used to make biofuels. Corn-based ethanol has an even bigger footprint. Virtually every gallon of gasoline sold in this country contains 10 percent ethanol, the maximum allowed by law. (A small number of gas stations also sell E85, an 85 percent ethanol blend that can only be used in specially designed engines.) Growing the corn to make all that ethanol requires a staggering 38 million acres, an area larger than the state of Illinois. If used to grow food for human consumption, Loyola writes, that acreage could feed 150 million people.

By diverting about 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop to ethanol production, the RFS program drives up food prices across the board. Since corn is a critical livestock feed, higher corn prices have inflated meat prices. The cost of ground beef has climbed almost 100 percent since the program began. Wheat and rice prices have also gone up as many farmers shifted to growing corn instead. As Loyola concludes, “The ethanol program functions as a hidden food tax—the most regressive of all taxes.” Those effects are felt not just in the U.S., but around the world.

So, just your typical Big Government dumpster fire, then— unforeseen consequences strewn extravagantly across the landscape; costs far outstripping any meager benefits; the whole disastrous burden plopped squarely onto the usual shoulders: those of the Normie schlubs who will be required to pay for it all, of course and as always.

Get the sugar out of our gas tanks and back onto the dinner table where it belongs, I say. Just think of the engine damage that will be averted by ditching this piss-water fuel, if nothing else. As for those costs I mentioned, well…

Given all those costs, one would assume the RFS program must have some powerful benefits that justify its continued existence. But recent research shows the mandates don’t even achieve the two things they were meant to accomplish: reducing fossil-fuel use and cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. If anything, it worsens these problems. Planting, fertilizing, and harvesting corn and then processing it into ethanol requires lots of energy. Researchers debate whether the resulting gallon of ethanol contains a bit more energy than went into it or a bit less, but the balance appears to be a wash at best. Rather than replacing fossil fuels, then, the RFS program simply converts those fuels into a more expensive form. Corn ethanol also backfires when it comes to reducing emissions. According to the new DOE study, “the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24 percent higher.”

I repeat: your typical, Mark 1 Mod 0 Big Goobermint boondoggle. No less, no more.

Whatever the political challenges, reforming the RFS program is the right thing to do.

Damned skippy it is…which is another reason why it ain’t happening.

“RFS is a misuse of hyper-productive American agricultural land,” Smith says. “Food inflation domestically and the potential for food shortages in other countries should make it obvious that agricultural lands should be used to produce food.” This would be a good time for President Biden and his team to remember that Obama-era mantra: never let a crisis go to waste.

Okay, you’re just being silly now. Biden’s minders are perfectly happy to keep the ethanol, and for them, what’s not to like about it? It damages internal combustion engines both large and small; its various detriments subtly discourage automobile ownership and use; it helps keep the price of gasoline artificially inflated; and it serves as a properly-bended knee to demonstrate a becoming fealty to the Enviro-nuts, who are much too useful to risk giving offense to. Somewhat related:

The average price of one gallon of regular gasoline in the United States rose by a dollar, to $3.31, during Joe Biden’s first year in the White House. Now, supercharged by war in Ukraine, the price has soared to $4.27 per gallon. That average, though, is misleading. The actual price of gas at the pump varies widely by state, with nearly a $2-per-gallon difference between the costliest and the least expensive states. While some of those differences have to do with geographic factors that affect distribution costs, state policies—including taxes and regulations—also play a significant role in the vastly different burden consumers face around the country.

The highest gas prices are found disproportionately in high-tax, heavily regulated Democratic states, while the lowest gas prices show up in so-called red or purple states. California leads the way at a whopping $5.78 per gallon, followed by Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Illinois, Connecticut, and New York among the lower 48 states (Hawaiian and Alaskan geography make any comparisons with the rest of the country difficult). At the bottom sits Kansas, at $3.81 per gallon, followed by Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Iowa.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of assholes.

The price of a barrel of oil accounts for about 56 percent of the cost of this gas. Taxes on average compose about 15 percent of the price, and distribution and marketing costs amount to the rest. State gas taxes are an obvious culprit, but extraordinary fuel standards beyond the national level force up prices, too—as do regulatory constraints on building pipelines and refineries, which inflate distribution costs.

There are several ways we might think of all this:

Just deserts
Getting what you voted for—good and hard
Reaping what you’ve sown
What goes around, comes around
Hoist on your own (enviro-nut) petard

Now isn’t that FUN? Feel free to post your own in the comments. Don’t be shy, you’ll enjoy it. Meanwhile, who’s really behind this latest spurt of fuel-ish frenzy, anyway? Take a wild guess.

President Joe Biden and prominent Democrats blame Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, alleged oil-company collusion and even COVID-19 for today’s sky-high gas prices. They refuse to take responsibility for this monumental mess of their own design.

Revealing either an Olympic-grade lack of self-awareness or a perjury-strength talent for lying, President Biden said: “It’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production.”

While running for president, Biden repeatedly promised to do exactly this.

“I guarantee you,” Biden told New Hampshire voters on Sept. 16, 2019. “We’re going to end fossil fuels.”

Follows, a long timeline of shitlib quotes vowing to kill off the fossil fuel industry, each item with the price per gallon at the time it was excreted parenthetically appended at the end. It’s a handy, helpful reminder that can be printed out and waved under their noses whenever they start in lying about it again.

Above their station

Posted on March 20, 2022March 20, 2022 by Mike

The Wokester punk-ass cockholsters dare to dream of cancelling Tchaikovsky now? SRSLY?!?

I see poor old Tchaikovsky is getting canceled by world-renowned ensembles such as the, er, Cardiff Philharmonic because he has stayed silent when he should have been noisily distancing himself from Vladimir Putin. As our friend Laura Rosen Cohen has pointed out, Peter Ilyich was quite the Ukrainophile: he used to summer there every year, just like many American politicians and money launderers. Nevertheless, his boots were on the ground far more often than Lindsey Graham’s: There are statues of Tchaikovsky and museums to him in at least two northern Ukrainian towns, as well as in Kiev.

So I thought, as compensation for disappointed Cardiff Phil customers, we’d have a little Tchaikovsky for our Sunday musical selection. Of course, ours is a department of songs, so you’ll have to suffer the great Russian with an American lyric – and, indeed, with a British lyric.

Our story begins in 1939. Well, actually, it begins in 1869. That’s when Tchaikovsky’s fellow composer Balakirev proposed Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as a subject to young Pyotr Ilyitch. The resulting “fantasy-overture” uses the Bard’s characters and themes for a series of musical contrasts, starting with the reflective clarinet-and-bassoon melody representing the star-crossed lovers’ pal Friar Laurence, next a stormy passage for the feudin’ an’ a-fightin’ Montagues and Capulets, and then the famous soaring love theme…

As it happens, Pyotr Ilyich is a long-time favorite of mine, and the Fantasy Overture one of my favorites among his works, although I must point out that I like Tchaikosvky well enough that I can’t really think of any of them I find off-putting. The FO stands out in the Tchaikovsky catalog, with its strangely ominous and dark opening section:

Yep, we have ourselves another brilliant SteynMusic post here, folks. Incredibly, Mark missteps slightly with the next bit.

In the context of the full piece, it’s as if the composer is either too cool or too serious to let rip with the theme and blow the roof off.

Think so, do ya? Well, I don’t know what we’re to make of the thunderous close-out, then.

If that don’t blow your roof off but good, then I’d say you got yourself one hell of a stout roof. When Tchaikovsky’s signature drumroll begins its thunderous, crashing announcement of the final bars it’s some truly stirring stuff, and no mistake.

The story of What Happened Next takes some truly wild twists and turns from there, even by SteynMusic standards. Highly, HIGHLY recommended, people.

What took you so long?

Posted on March 20, 2022March 20, 2022 by Mike

I expected this WAY before now, as y’all know.

I sense a disturbance in the force. In fact, I’ve been feeling the tremors for a while. Back in January, I wrote a column for American Greatness called “The Coming Dethronement of Joe Biden.” In it, I noted that Biden’s appalling performance as president would sooner or later—and probably sooner, given the ostentatious nature of his multifaceted failure—lead to his removal as president.

I should have added that it wasn’t Biden’s performance per se that would lead to his downfall. The problem, rather, was the way his performance was undermining his—and therefore his minders’ and puppetmasters’—political power. As Saul Alinsky, community organizer to the stars, noted, the “issue is never the issue.” Accordingly, the people who put Joe Biden in power—I cannot name them, but I know they are the same people who keep him in power—do not care about inflation, rising gas and food prices, COVID lockdowns or mask mandates, the porousness of our Southern border, the threat of war with Russia, or the myriad other issues that worry ordinary voters. I am quite certain, in fact, that the word “voters” brings a vaguely contemptuous smile to their faces.

They are not troubled by the suffering of the people, indeed, they approve of a certain amount of suffering. Suffering produces dependency; and dependency, in turn, is like an insurance policy for those who cater to it: the bureaucrats who fill the troughs that feed the populace. The point, of course, was never to end the dependency but to manage in such a way as to perpetuate and expand it. Joe Biden is an errand boy, a figurehead, in the metabolism of this great (not to say Great Society) act of political legerdemain.

The last several days have been full of wonder at the New York Time’s admission that, guess what, Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” was not—as Joe Biden claimed—“Russian disinformation.” Nope, everything that Donald Trump said to Leslie Stahl about it was true. Everything the New York Post said about it was true. Twitter and the rest of the regime media pronounced a damnatio memoriae on the Post and anyone who dared publicize the scurrilous story. The poor computer repair chap who found and publicized the dirt, political as well as sexual, on Hunter’s laptop was hounded and driven into bankruptcy. (Remember Jonah Goldberg on that poor fellow? I do. “Wait you believe the computer repair shop story? Like at face value?”)

Goldberg is but one of many who—if this were a better world and they were better people—would be scrambling madly to make a shamefaced apology to those of us upon whom the passage of time has now conferred total vindication.

Many people seem to think that the reason that the story of Hunter’s laptop—which is just as much about Joe Biden’s perfidy as it is about Hunter’s perversion—has emerged now is because it can no longer do any serious damage. The election is over, Biden won—at least, he was declared the winner, which is not quite the same thing, although it does mean that he gets to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But I wonder if there isn’t something else going on. The news is full not only of stories about the New York Times fessing up, sort of, about the contents of Hunter’s laptop, but also of stories about how Hunter is likely to be indicted for tax fraud. In one sense, that is not news. I wrote about it at the end of 2020 when Hunter announced, sotto voce, that he had been informed that he was being investigated by the tax authorities. But in another sense, I suspect, that news, like the revelation from the New York Times that, what do you know, all that stuff about Hunter’s laptop was on the level, like Joe Biden’s bizarre suggestion a couple of days ago that “everybody knows somebody” who has taken nude pictures of some lover and then used them to “blackmail” the person—all that has a different valence now that the Biden Administration is seriously underwater and there are no lifelines in evidence.

The issue is never the issue. I suspect that Joe Biden is being prepped for ejection. Exactly how it will happen I do not yet know. But he is on the threshold, or possibly has even passed the threshold, where he could appear to govern. His minders understand this. They must be the ones to replace him, otherwise they themselves risk being replaced, which would be intolerable. As I say, it’s not entirely clear yet how the defenestration will take place. Obviously, Kamala will have to be dealt with first, and she will be. Look for some ground softening stories such as the Times just served up about the laptop. They won’t be long in coming.

T’is a consummation devoutly to be wished—not because it would solve any problems, not that it would fix anything, not that it would signal any monumental Ruling Class capitulation—simply because it would be a painful, humiliating slap in the face for two grubby little mountebanks who are long past due for one.

Grift most ingenious

Posted on March 20, 2022March 20, 2022 by Mike

Elon Musk vs Henry Ford.

Elon Musk is hailed as a “genius” by some.

And he is – but not in the way they mean it.

Like Henry Ford, Musk took something he didn’t invent that was essentially a curiosity and recast it in a different way. The difference being that when Henry Ford simplified the car by standardizing parts and mass producing them on an assembly line – as opposed to hand-building them, one at a time, as had been prior practice – the result was a much less expensive and far more practical car that almost anyone could afford to buy.

Musk did the opposite.

What Musk did was to rebrand the electric car as something sexy and “new” – even though the electric car concept is older than any Model T. But he made it seem new – and very sexy – by making it very quick and very sleek, with all the very latest in the way of gadgetry. All of which served to distract from its unaffordability, impracticality and inefficiency.

But the problem remained. How to sell what most people couldn’t afford?

Enter Elon’s real genius.

Unlike Henry Ford, who appealed to the marketplace, Elon Musk appealed to the government. Not merely to subsidize what he was otherwise unable to sell but – far more fundamental – to promote the sell. That is wasn’t merely an indulgence to purchase (or subsidize) an electric car.

It was a kind of moral necessity.

This is the nature of Elon’s “genius” – as contrasted with that of Henry Ford.

I always sorta liked Musk myself; he’s pretty skilled at donning the mantle of gadfly now and then, which is always amusing to me. That said, I see little if anything to argue with in Eric’s assessment here, unlovely though it is.

Stable genius, or straight-up visionary?

Posted on March 20, 2022March 20, 2022 by Mike

Hey, anybody remember the welkin-rattling howl raised when That Ogre Drumpf™ said NATO was an outdated relic of WW2 that should be done away with, or at least ignored?

Nah, me neither.

NATO did, indeed, have a purpose when it was created: To become a military barrier against a land invasion by the USSR into Europe, and slow it enough for the United States to bring its own full military strength into play. And despite all the BS that had nothing to do with the NATO mission, like the Libya excursion or the bombing of Yugoslavia, its primary reason for existence is, and always has been, as a counter to The Russian Enemy.

Therefore, Russia must be an enemy. Otherwise, there is no reason for NATO to continue to exist.

Looked at from this POV, one might even wonder if it isn’t the NATO bureaucracy itself pushing the war with Russia in order to justify its continued existence. Bureaucracies are like cockroaches – almost impossible to kill. And they will fight anybody and go to any length to survive.

Another thing I recall, from the very earliest days of his presidency, is the overture Trump made to Putin in hopes of forging a US-Russia alliance to combat Mooselimb terrorism worldwide, a truly revolutionary proposition which Putin seemed to welcome heartily. Such would have been most salutary partnership had it come to fruition for all sorts of reasons, but instead ended up speedily strangled a-borning by the Shampeachment shitshow, which at the time seemed almost to have been ginned up specifically for the purpose.

Testing four…five…six

Posted on March 20, 2022March 20, 2022 by Mike

So I get on the ol’ iMac here for other purposes entirely, hopefully launch Ecto with no real expectation of success (backstory here), when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a seemingly stable, fully-functional blog-posting window instead of the usual debilitating lockup and crash? If this test post works properly, it’s gonna call for mucho rejoicing here at CF Central HQ, I’ll tell ya that much.

It’s a Trumpiful life?

Posted on March 17, 2022March 17, 2022 by Mike

None dare call it “progress.”

In the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey is able to see what the world would have been like had he never been born. Everything changes. George wasn’t there to save his younger brother from drowning. And, that in turn, meant that his brother wasn’t there to save the lives of hundreds of men on board a U.S. military troop ship. Everything has a domino effect.

Unfortunately, we get to have a similar experience. We see how one terrible leader imposing his disastrous policies on the American people has negatively impacted every American. We also witness how Joe Biden’s immature foreign policy has produced unrest and war.

And, although we are assured by the Left that the 2020 presidential election was pristine—the best ever—we wonder wistfully what the world would look like had President Trump remained in the Oval Office instead of the blindingly incompetent and malevolent Joe Biden.

Under this administration, the Left criticizes and tries to prevent parental involvement in their children’s education. The Left hides what they are doing, and when parents show up at the school board meetings, they are arrested, threatened, and the police apparatus of the federal government spies on them.

Biden’s attorney general has created a task force and a ranking system for parents, even referring to them as would-be domestic terrorists.

As we try to wake from the Biden nightmare we remember the position of the Trump Administration, that parents should have school freedom, participation, and transparency of curriculum.

In the movie, George Bailey implores his guardian angel to bring him back to life and George’s wish is granted.

Who wouldn’t take some tweets in exchange for energy independence, reduced inflation, an economy that produced more participation—pre-COVID—than any in history, support for police, control of our borders, and support for parents’ supervision of their children’s education?

Who wouldn’t prefer a reality that kept Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, North Korea, and Iran in check, and brought stability to the Middle East through the Abraham Accords?

As the angel Clarence told George Bailey, “You see, George, you really had a wonderful life.

The leftists don’t believe it because they like division and despair, but under President Trump, we really had a wonderful life.

Well, I wouldn’t say “wonderful,” exactly; we have near a century of Leftist destruction to undo before I could dream of using that word in good conscience. Too, Trump himself did plenty of less-than-wonderful things during his term in office. But only a fool or a shitlib (BIRM) could deny that we were much, much better off where we were then than where we are now. And even then he’d be lying, as always.

USA Today announces this year’s WOTY selection

Posted on March 17, 2022March 17, 2022 by Mike

The moment we’ve all been waiting for, I’m sure.

‘Be true to yourself’: A message from the nation’s highest-ranking openly transgender official

*groan*

Rachel Levine is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women across the country who have made a significant impact. The annual program is a continuation of Women of the Century, a 2020 project that commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

I’m fine with it, really, except for that whole “She’s a fucking MAN” part.

Levine, 64, a trained pediatrician, became the nation’s highest-ranking openly transgender official last March when the Senate confirmed her as assistant secretary of health. Levine has spent her professional life in medicine – as an academic, a clinical researcher, a primary care physician and as Pennsylvania’s physical general and secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health – but she admits her current role has proven to be the most challenging.

Beyond the pandemic, Levine said she is concerned about the challenges women and girls face related to body image. She ran an eating disorder program at Penn State University and was struck by the pressures of social media related to appearance.

“We need to be welcoming and celebratory for women of all aspects, of all sizes and shapes,” she said. “And we have to work towards that compassion for all women and not put such an emphasis on thinness and appearance. I think that we need to work as a culture in the United States, but also globally, to be more compassionate and more accepting of girls and women, no matter what their size and shape.”

Still, Levine believes that women are largely responsible for the positive changes we are seeing in society.

Because of course he does.

“Women are absolutely critical in terms of promoting healthy behaviors for themselves and their families and our communities,” Levine said. “I think women are often the creators of change. In terms of the changes that we see in our society and our culture, I think that women are those change-makers.”

Gotta give the mentally-disturbed freak this: he really knows how to tickle all the shitlib erogenous zones, don’t he?

Via Miguel at GFZ, who quips “Nothing says, “Women’s History Month’…Like awarding a dude the title of Woman of the Year.” Ain’t it the truth.

1

A real “Well, duh!” moment

Posted on March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 by Mike

A perennial favorite poses the silliest of questions.

Why Are Leftists And Elitists So Happy About Skyrocketing Gas Prices?

Brandon (Smith, not that other guy) knows the answer as well as the rest of us do, of course, and goes on to lay it out for us.

There is a narrative being spread within leftist/socialist circles by media celebrities and White House cronies, and it is this: Paying high prices for oil and gas is actually a GOOD thing. But why is it a good thing to these people? How do they benefit?

Spoiler Alert: It has nothing to do with punishing Russia economically.

As I write this article crude prices have somewhat stabilized around $110-$115 a barrel, which translates to a little over $4 a gallon for gas across most of the country. I don’t expect this to last very long. My guess is that regular gasoline will end up in the $7 to $8 per gallon range before US shale oil roars back and balances out the market. I realize that this is a conservative estimate and perhaps a best case scenario. Gas could go much higher depending on speculation in oil markets as well as continued government interference from the Biden Administration.

The big secret is that gas prices were already going to inflate to epic highs, the Ukraine event is not a catalyst, it’s just adding a little petro to the house fire. The fact is, there are some people out there that are desperate for prices to go much higher regardless of what happens in Ukraine.

Yep. Another example of the shitlib Leftocrats never letting a good crisis go to waste, confirmation of their rock-solid opportunism in the mad quest for more power.

Biden’s electric car initiatives are strange in light of the fact that inflation is already straining people’s pocketbooks yet the government is suggesting those same struggling Americans buy $50,000 to $100,000 vehicles. None of this actually addresses the root causes of the inflation we face. Rather, Biden and leftists seem to be saying “We aren’t interested in fixing the problem, you are just going to have to adapt in the ways we want you to adapt…”

Clearly, the establishment does not want the public to question the real triggers for the inflationary disaster we are witnessing. This is illustrated very well in an article I found by CBS declaring that any suggestions that high oil prices are somehow tied to Biden’s electric car program is “conspiracy theory” related to QAnon.

This is bizarre.

Nawww. It’s typical, is what it is. Smith then lists some of those pesky, debate-proof facts the Left hates like vampires hate garlic before winding up thusly:

To summarize, the elites are happy about rising oil prices today because first, they now have a perfect scapegoat for the disasters inflation will reap; disasters they are responsible for. And second, they now have a backdoor way to introduce their carbon agenda, starting with forced public dependency on expensive and less efficient green technologies and slowly progressing towards total carbon restrictions.

Average leftists are happy about rising gas prices because they ignorantly believe that sanctions on Russian oil hurt Putin. They also ignorantly believe in global warming and they don’t realize how drastically our standard of living will be reduced in the name of carbon dictatorship. In other words, this isn’t a conspiracy to force people to buy electric cars; most people can’t afford a Tesla anyway. But it is a conspiracy to undermine our prosperity and our freedoms through inflationary crisis as well as green energy mandates. Leftists have no understanding of this. They are happy because they are dumb.

Indeed so. They’re like a jilted woman who is so vindictive and hot for vengeance she’s perfectly willing to do things that will harm her too, even badly, just so’s she gets to score some points on her erstwhile man and do him damage in the bargain.

3

Stuff and nonsense

Posted on March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 by Mike

Nobody brings the steaming, smoking codswallop quite like L’il Petey Buttplug.

SEC. BUTTIGIEG ON PELOSI’S CLAIM THAT SPENDING REDUCES DEBT: ‘IT IS TRUE’
“Well, I mean, first of all, if you look at our fiscal policy, it is true. And amazingly, a lot of people don’t even know this, that the deficit has gone down and down by a remarkable amount. So, I think part of it is an expression of that. I think also part of it is pointing to the fact that some of the investments that we make help with inflation. I mean, that’s definitely true with the infrastructure investments, right, because we know how infrastructure is related to supply chain, supply chain is related to inflation.”

And we all already know what great shape the supply chain is in, don’t we?

Delusional, stupid, or merely a habitual liar scrambling to cover his ass? It’s a rare three-fer in the “Embrace the healing power of ‘and'” pantheon, methinks. Kudos to Mr/Mrs/Miss/Whatthefuckever Buttplug for making this remarkable hat-trick look so dang easy.

Fear not, all is well

Posted on March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 by Mike

More “Wait, whuuuuuh…?”

Gee, what a GREAT idea! Wonder if this freakazoid was invited.

In the very BEST of hands, folks.

TruckerDoom followup

Posted on March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 by Mike

So in phone consultation with BCE earlier, he mentioned that Bayou Pete had taken notice of one of my earlier posts wherein I quoted my brother’s dire warning that, if diesel prices rise much more (which, they’re gonna), thousands of drivers will be giving up and getting out of the business. Here’s a portion of Pete’s lament:

What does that mean in raw figures?

Owner-Operators primarily operate Class 8 Trucks (33,001 pounds and greater). There were approximately 2.9 million registered combination trucks (tractor-trailers) in 2018.

There are approximately 350,000 owner operators driving in the United States today…Owner Operators make up 9% of the truckers on the road today.

Nearly 1.5 million people work for the 124,320 employer businesses in this industry, and another 587,000 are self-employed, or “nonemployers” … These nonemployers (assuming one person per business) make up nearly 29% of the workers in the industry.

So, if independent owner-operators have to park their trucks because they can’t recover their fuel costs from their customers, we’re talking about a 10% reduction in the number of trucks available to haul freight – this on top of an existing supply chain crunch that’s got every truck running as hard as it can, all day, every day, just to try to keep pace. We’re also talking about a quarter to a third of those involved in the trucking industry being out of work.

Our supply chain simply can’t handle such losses. It’ll be crippled.

Yep, t’will…along with just about everything else. Remember the trucker’s mantra: If you have it, a truck brought it. Sorry to say, but today my brother had more bad tidings. His current rig, a Freightliner Classic XL with rebuilt engine and tranny, a new clutch, and some other goodies, to include oversize 150 gallon fuel tanks (those big chrome drums you can see on most all trucks under the doors on eah side, unless they’re hidden behind some plastic covers). This afternoon on the way back from Charleston it cost him nearly 700 smackers to fill just halfway up.

As of about a half hour ago, Little Bro hasn’t decided whether he’s gonna work tomorrow yet.

Be sure to click through to catch Peter’s closing ‘graphs. It’s just as he says: all these things—trucker shortages, bare store shelves, absurdly high fuel costs, systemic Bidenflation—have a common root cause, which can be found in Mordor On The Potomac.

Strongest, most effective military on Earth?

Posted on March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 by Mike

The Lone Superpower.

Navy Refuses to Deploy Warship While Commander Remains Unvaccinated
U.S. Navy officials have said a warship can’t be deployed because its commander has refused the COVID-19 vaccine.

The service said an East Coast guided-missile destroyer is “out of commission” after a Florida federal judge ruled that the Navy and Marine Corps cannot remove its officer for being unvaccinated against COVID-19.

The warship now remains docked in Norfolk, Virginia.

It comes after U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday, a George H. W. Bush nominee, ruled on Feb. 2 to bar Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and all other military officials from taking punitive action against the unnamed Navy officer, who sought religious exemptions to the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Merryday wrote that the Navy’s rejection failed to note that the branch has separately granted hundreds of medical exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate

Annnnd…Cut! Print! That’s a wrap, people! We have now officially reached peak Covid stupidity, I do believe.

Top military officials determined that the commander’s religious beliefs were sincere and that they would be “substantially burdened” by being forced to get vaccinated, but also claimed that granting the exemption request “would have a predictable and detrimental effect on the readiness of you and the Sailors who serve alongside you.”

Oops. Looks like I mighta spoke too soon.

Admiral Daryl Caudle filed a statement on Feb. 28 saying that the Navy “cannot have a Sailor who disobeys a lawful order to receive a vaccine because they harbor a personal objection any more than we can have a Sailor who disobeys the technical manual for operating a nuclear reactor because he or she believes they know better.”

DAYUMMMM, dude, this Covid-stupidity hole is deep enough already! So stop digging, willya?!? Bill, with all the analysis of this risible nonsense you’ll ever need:

The American Dream will end in farce. And then nightmare.

Not quite there yet, Bill. From where I’m sitting, it ended in farce a goodish while back. And as I’ve been saying, the nightmare part has already begun.

Update! Here’s a link to the original article, hat tip Bill, just in case anybody has problems with the archive.is one. I never have had any trouble with ’em myself, but I’ve heard from others who have here and then.

No matter how paranoid you are, you ain’t anywhere near paranoid enough

Posted on March 14, 2022March 14, 2022 by Mike

Coming soon to an Orwellian nightmare-nation all too near you. Quite nigh upon us, in fact. Like Sandberg’s fog, it crept in on little cat’s feet—inch by inch, over the course of many decades—and is now well-established and will be extremely difficult to overthrow. Even moreso, sickeningly, since so many so-called Americans actually support it. The Covid trial run showed that clearly enough.

Yesterday, when a December 2021 news article was belatedly linked at (ironically enough) Citizen Free Press, I saw The Perfect Citizen come one giant step closer to reality. Under the title “Worldwide Social Credit Industry – Infrastructure to Support Social Credit Systems Represents a $16.1 Billion Opportunity by 2026,” the article matter-of-factly discusses the great money-making opportunities now possible in the emerging field of police-state surveillance of the citizenry. After listing some of the multinational corporate giants competing for market share in our future slave-state, it summarized the “opportunities” in a set of bullet points:

“The COVID-19 pandemic has facilitated substantial interest in citizen monitoring solutions…

Cameras and other optical equipment for social credit systems will reach $723M globally by 2026

Advanced computing will be used in conjunction with AI to provide nearly flawless identification and tracking

Various forms of biometrics will be used for identity verification as well as verifying the presence/location of people

Starting as tangential to public safety and homeland security, the social credit market becomes mainstream by 2026

Social credit systems represent the ability to identify (mostly people but also some ‘things’) and track activities for purposes of grading behaviors and applying ‘social credit scoring.”

While no mention is made of the Maoist origins and goals of “social credit” ideology, the article admits that “most systems will have socially acceptable behaviour at their core…government, companies, and society as a whole must determine ‘good’, ‘bad’, and ‘marginal’ behavior within the social credit market…[S]ystems will ultimately be used for a variety of commerce and lifestyle-related issues…accessibility within public places such as concerts, sporting events, and other assemblies. High social scoring individuals within the social credit market will be granted preferred access to both real and digital assets…[T]he convergence of … disparate technologies…will facilitate value within the social credit market…sensors, biometrics, cameras, and other optical devices, computer vision systems, and other advanced computing platforms.”

Ah, the banality of evil as our natural rights and freedom die not in a blaze of glory on a battlefield but by slow-motion absorption into a real-life “Matrix” of cybernetic transhumanism facilitated by financial advisers.

If the familiarity all this doesn’t leave you with chilled blood and gooseflesh, you aren’t paying attention. The title mentions “war propaganda,” but for some reason the author barely even mentions it in the piece. Bill takes up his slack for us:

The Basic Principles of War Propaganda – Wikipedia

Contents
1 Contents
1.1 1. We don’t want war, we are only defending ourselves!
1.2 2. Our adversary is solely responsible for this war!
1.3 3. Our adversary’s leader is inherently evil and resembles the devil
1.4 4. We are defending a noble cause, not our particular interests!
1.5 5. The enemy is purposefully committing atrocities; if we are making mistakes this happens without intention
1.6 6. The enemy makes use of illegal weapons
1.7 7. We suffer few losses, the enemy’s losses are considerable
1.8 8. Recognized intellectuals and artists support our cause
1.9 9. Our cause is sacred
1.10 10. Whoever casts doubt on our propaganda helps the enemy and is a traitor

Seems relevant.

Follows, just one contemporary example, with no further commentary either provided or necessary from Bill. The accompanying image spells it out well enough.

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