Category: Brilliant!

Awestruck

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That’s my visceral response to what I think just might be one of the most well-written and -constructed, punchy, and just plain fun to read paragraphs I ever did see, by our good friend and colleague Fran Porretto. Dig, if you will:

Gentle Reader, if you’ve never reflected on the penchant political columnists possess for bending, folding, stapling, and mutilating our sacred language into shapes unimagined by the greatest origamists in human history, now would not be a bad time to start. And for a bonus dollop of illumination: that phrase “would not be a bad time to start” is called a periphrasis. It’s a technique for using negatives to convey a positive suggestion. Paradoxically, this underscores the positive notion. It has the side benefit of making the user sound like W. Somerset Maugham.

See what he did there? A judiciously light dusting of alliteration early on; a reference to “our sacred language,” which I do NOT consider at all hyperbolic or over the top, as I do that “sacred democracy” twipe being thrown around WAY too often nowadays; a direct slap at “journalistic” manipulation via a metaphor so colorful and bright it dazzles; the paradoxically entertaining and educational “bonus dollop of illumination”; lastly, a sly Somerset Maugham reference, which I hope to God I will never come to think of as a bad thing.

That’s the penultimate (well, give or take) ‘graph of a brief post on Doublespeak which is richly deserving of your time and attention, from whence I gleaned a truly rollicking Spencer piece I had til now overlooked. To wit:

Imagine this scenario: a wildly unpopular and manifestly incapable president is running, however haltingly, for reelection. Initially he seemed like a lock, but then he encountered an unexpected challenge from a scion of an old American political family, a man who defies all the conventional categorization of political candidates and has set the establishment on its ear by challenging not only the superannuated corruptocrat in the White House but many of that establishment’s most cherished assumptions.

It would make a great novel, but it’s real life, and it’s an exhilarating reminder that America is still a republic, still a place where the elites can be challenged at all, however entrenched they may appear to be. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not only challenged the elites, he has frightened them to the core, and that’s wonderful to see. The latest indication of how much of a threat they consider him to be comes from the Los Angeles Times, always a reliable organ for far-Left propaganda. The Left Coast Times is so scared of RFK Jr. that on Monday, it proclaimed, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a threat to your health — and our democracy.”

Now, this is absurd on its face and an insult to the intelligence of the handful of remaining Los Angeles Times readers. The Left has now become so divorced from reality that Times writer Michael Hiltzik would have us believe that a contested Democrat party primary is bad for “our democracy.” But a full-out coronation of Old Joe to serve another four years as the figurehead for the shadowy individuals who are really running things? Why, that would be “our democracy” personified. One candidate, inevitable outcome? Good democracy! Two candidates, unclear outcome? Bad democracy!

For the millionth time, we don’t have a “democracy,” we have a republic. But the key point here is that, once again, Leftists have confirmed the fact that when they talk about “our democracy,” they don’t actually mean anything democratic at all. They are referring not to any kind of democracy, but to their own hegemony. The only “democracy” that involves one candidate receiving the forced adulation of the masses and reelection by acclimation from all those who don’t want to end up in the gulag is the type that is practiced in states such as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea.

The North Koreans will happily explain to you how the personality cult of Kim Jong Un is the very embodiment of the popular will and thus the quintessential expression of “democracy,” and that’s what Michael Hiltzik and the Los Angeles Times have in mind for the folks at home. “Democracy” means we all learn to love Old Joe, or whomever the elites decide ultimately to replace him with. It doesn’t mean that we actually have a choice between different candidates, unless those candidates all have elite approval, and RFK Jr. decidedly does not.

Nobody out there ought to be holding their breath waiting for me to endorse RFKjr, lest they end up purple-faced, suffocating, and deeply disappointed. That said, I do enjoy the fact that—as one Donald John Trump also did not so long ago—he gives the creeping fantods to a whole bunch of people I despise from the very depths of my gizzard.

Strung up, strung out

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Yet another excellent Quora digest edition drops into my email inbox.

Why does Billy Gibbons use 7-43 guitar strings? It seems odd.

Billy uses 7–38.

Billy used to use 11s & 12s because he thought that’s what all the blues guys did: Big string = Big sound

He was in the green room of a gig with B.B. King and BB wanted to see Billy’s axe. BB was noodling with Billy’s guitar and asked Billy why he was running such heavy strings? Billy said, “I thought that’s how all you blues guys got your tone.” BB said, “Why do you want to work so hard?” I think Billy dropped down to 9s almost immediately and eventually worked his way down to 7s and 8s, which is what a lot of the classic music of the 50s, 60s, and 70s was done with.

7’s will teach you about control PDQ because they respond so easily. If you want to sound super-tight on 9s or 10s go play on 7s and 8s for while.

.007s? Dang, I don’t think I ever have played with strings that light; in fact, I don’t recall being aware that they even made ‘em that light. My uncle started me out on .008s, a jazz set of his preferred Black Diamonds with the wrapped G (as a snot-nosed punk kid already gravitating heavily towards rock and roll, I didn’t like that worth a damn, believe me; wrapped third strings on electric guitars is definitely a jazzbo thing). Then, once I’d mastered the essential chords, scales, and runs, followed by guitar adaptions of a few old songs, most of which Murray had transposed and committed to staff paper himself (Sweet Georgia Brown*, I remember ye fondly, old girl!), I went out on my own hook from there.

POINTLESS CF DIGRESSION™: I still have one of those jumbo-sized plastic totes crammed full of Murray’s old sheet-music transcriptions in climate-controlled storage over in my friend Wendy’s living room, safely tucked away between her two (2) pianos. It’s all promised to my friend Jeremy, a great player in his own right, who damned near collapsed in stunned but delighted disbelief when I first showed him that plastic-tub treasure trove and spent an evening pawing through it with him. Jeremy took guitar lessons from me back when I was still willing to take on students; he’s probably the best pure musician I’ve ever known, and I’m happy indeed to turn over all that 24-karat musical history to him, knowing as I do how much he’ll love it, and what good care he’ll take of it.

Anyhoo, when I began playing professionally, I had to change strings before every show, either in the green room or at the hotel. I could count on breaking at least one any night I got lazy and didn’t—usually the D or B, don’t know why that would have been. And believe me, I tried like hell to figure it out. It was annoying as hell, but then again all the onstage angst and aggro was easily avoided just by the simple expedient of changing the blasted things.

Uncle Murray, by contrast, only replaced his strings once in a blue moon; he’d boil ‘em when they started to feel limp and flaccid, then put ‘em back on for another year’s worth of abuse. Murray and I never discussed the way I went through strings; I figure he would have been genuinely horrified at the needless waste, the grotesque profligacy of any nephew of his buying strings not by the pack, but by the case. Why, the very idea! Surely he’d taught me better than THAT!

I DO know that Stevie Ray Vaughn famously used strings so painfully heavy they more closely resembled low-register piano strings, or perhaps telephone-pole guy wires. Don’t know how in the world he managed to play the way he did—bending notes with no apparent effort, fingers zooming wildly all over the fretboard like honeybees in a field of wildflowers—on strings that big, night after night after night, for years. But then, that’s why he’s Stevie Ray Vaughan, and I, y’know…ain’t.

My own calluses, laboriously created by set after set of comparatively wimpy D’Addario Jazz/Rock .011 to .049s, are still there, and I haven’t picked up a guitar since 2017. Hell, I can still feel the lip-callus you get from trumpet-playing when I run my tongue across my upper lip; apparently, they never do go away completely. The calluses on Stevie Ray’s left-hand fingertips, then, must have been something to see indeed. By the time he died, his fingertips must have been rutted as deeply as a New Mexico desert valley after a sudden monsoon.

.007 to .038 gauge strings, Gibbons? Ya fuckin’ pussy.

Update! Having mentioned Jeremy up there, please enjoy one of my all-time favorite songs from his surf band nonpareil, the Aqualads.

Great band, great tune. Written by the late, lamented Bob Nelson, may he forever rest in peace.

* I keep thinking of stuff I want to add to this post, so I put in a link to Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grappelli’s version of SGB, just because they were two of Murray’s favorites.

A bridge too far

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Thanks to our friends and fellow Americans in Hamtramck, looks like that long-expected schism between the Left and its ersatz Mooselimb allies of convenience is finally underway.

‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags
Many liberals celebrated when Hamtramck, Michigan, elected a Muslim-majority council in 2015 but a vote to exclude LGBTQ+ flags from city property has soured relations

In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

This week many of those same residents watched in dismay as a now fully Muslim and socially conservative city council passed legislation banning Pride flags from being flown on city property that had – like many others being flown around the country – been intended to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing.

Follows, a toilet-load of the usual whiny shitlib claptrap (this IS the Grauniad I’m excerpting here, after all) about “rightwing agitators” “shoving” genderqueerintersexnonbinaryminorattractedotherkins “back into the closet,” thereby effectively “erasing” them if not just genociding them outright. Back over to Hizzoner da Mayor for the kernel of actual, by-God truth here.

Their talking points mirror those made elsewhere: some Hamtramck Muslims say they simply want to protect children, and gay people should “keep it in their home”.

.Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.

“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.

Bold mine, because every word of it is perfectly, inarguably true and accurate. Some of us have been insisting for years, over and over and over again, that Leftards needed to slow their roll a bit, before Normal Americans got pissed off enough to start slapping back at them. In fact, just the other day I said this:

Might the Hamtramck Muslims actually have put themselves, however inadvertently, at the pointy end of a Real American Renaissance here? After this, I don’t know as I’d be willing to bet against it.

Taking the longer view, this Hamtramck brouhaha could easily turn out to be the most genuinely important news story of the year, far more so than whatever Sewer State pig-in-a-poke “wins” the 24 “election.”

And so suddenly, against all odds and expectations, here we all are. Is it too late now for Leftwits to prevent what’s coming at them next? After all the sick, intolerable depravity they’ve tried to force down Normal gullets the past couple of years, one can only hope that it is, frankly. After all, it’s not as if they weren’t warned, by plenty and to spare of us. Now let them choke on it instead of us, for a refreshing change of pace.

(Via Insty)

Update! Looking back over this post for purposes of proofreading, this bit from the first excerpt sorta jumped out at me (bold mine again):

They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.

Of course, there was no rebuke at all; how could there have been, when there had been no “Islamophobic rhetoric” whatsoever, from Trump nor from anybody else? How deliciously ironic, then, that they now find themselves being rebuked, and quite deservedly at that. Not symbolically either, but directly, unequivocally, and—dare I say it—meaningfully, too.

Sit back and suck on it, shitlibs. You asked for it, and now you’re a-gonna get it—good and hard. This is only the start of it, I’d bet.

Enough already update! Divemedic says he’s over it, and with good reason. I’m over it myself, and I suspect many, many others are as well.

Hire the handicapped

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Price. Less.


Whose idea was it? Dunno, but he’s a fuckin’ diabolical genius, is what he is. Did I not TELL you guys that having two (2) mentally-incapacitated rutabagas in DC was gonna yield up comedy gold? Folks, it just doesn’t GET much better than that. Reminds me of this classic skit.

Halp us, Handi Man—John Kary has failed, so only you can save us now!

Thanks (I think) to Brack for the steer.

Update! Yes, yes, I know I said “two” above, which was technically in error, being a serious undercount and all. Hell, Biden, Veggerman, and Feinstein all punch so much higher than their actual weight when it comes to retardation that, between them, they run up the score to waaaay on past mere single digits.

Updated update! Yep, the delightful pairing wasn’t a hoax or some kind of beautiful, beautiful dream. It really did happen.

Sen. John Fetterman garbles words, wears baggy shorts during event with Biden in Philadelphia
Sen. John Fetterman dressed for a day on a basketball court Saturday to greet President Biden in Philadelphia — then stumbled over his words as he spoke to the media.

The Pennsylvania Democrat, in baggy shorts, sneakers, and a light blue hoodie, was unable to pronounce words such as “delegation” and “infrastructure” as he made a garbled one-minute statement after Biden toured the collapsed I-95 overpass that has snarled traffic throughout the northeast.

“This is a president that is committed to infructure,” said Fetterman, 53, who continues to grapple with the effects of a stroke he suffered last May as he campaigned for his Senate seat.

Biden, he said, “is here to commit to work with the governor and the delegadation to make sure that we get this fixed quick, fast, as well, too.”

The freshman senator also praised Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, calling it “the jewel, kind of a law, of the infra, infration, infriction bill that is gonna make sure that there’s bridges like this all across America getting rebuilt.”

Ohhh, this guy’s good. Better than good, actually. He just might out-gobbledegook Biden, the acknowledged master. Via Bill, who quips: I doubt either man had any clue what the other was talking about. Or where he was, or how he got there.

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The Trannytittygate scramble

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As the “Biden” junta trips over itself desperately trying to backpedal on the White House “Pride Party” Trannytittygate fiasco, Stacey Lennox offers some excellent suggestions on how the object lesson might be driven fully home for these inept, bumbling doofi.

Maybe don’t live your truth and express your joy in front of kids at an official government function. This was predictable as soon as hosting YouTube stars at the White House became a thing. It started with a woman who bathed in Fruit Loops, moved on to Dylan Mulvaney looking like a garish Audrey Hepburn with an Adam’s apple, and ended with people stripping on the White House lawn. Our enemies are laughing.

Hell, can you blame ‘em? At this point, I’M laughing right along with them myself.

If a bit of embarrassment is all it takes to roll back the revolutionary LBGT+ lunacy, here are a few other things we should demand the White House schedule immediately. First, have Joe Biden attend a “family” drag show in a tavern. Put him right in the front row to observe how grown men in dresses interact with children. If he’s lucky, the organizers will let him sniff the hair of a kid or two.

Then, they should send Jill Biden to a local junior high. As an educator, this should be an easy ask. During her visit, she needs to read aloud selected passages of Gender Queer on camera. Remember, these books are necessary, so there is no reason the event should not stream live on Twitter.

As compassionate as she is, she should visit at least one teen boy and one teen girl in the hospital after transition surgery. Then the butcher who performed the double mastectomy or orchiectomy should explain the surgery and recovery in detail. She should also meet with Jazz Jennings’s mother, who can describe the lifelong “wound care” for boys who receive vaginoplasties. Again, these events should be broadcast live, preferably before the end of Pride month.

Then, I would like the president and his wife to welcome Chloe Cole to the White House. Cole is a young woman suing the doctors who provided her testosterone and performed a double mastectomy as a teen. They should be forced to look her in the eye and assure her she received “life-saving care” because nothing could be further from the truth.

Sounds good to me, I’m all in. Let’s do this, people!

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Tucker on Twitter, again

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Episode Four drops—“Wannabe dictator”—and it’s a real doozy.


As Barry says, this one may well be his best yet. Money quote: “Just because he’s trying to put the other candidate in prison for the rest of his life for crimes he himself committed doesn’t mean he has a totalitarian impulse. C’mon, that’s absurd!”  Looks like I’m gonna need to set up a new category for these Tucker posts, I’m thinking.

Update! Annnd our new Tucker cat is a done deal. Be sure you have your sarcasm filter set on “High” for this one, folks; it’s so blistering, so caustic—particularly in the last third or so—that it could literally peel paint.

Better sit down for this one

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Never thought I’d I’d see the day I would say this, but: you GO, Muslims!

Watch: Michigan City Bans LGBTQ Pride Flag, Other Political Flags from City Property
The all-Muslim city council of Hamtramck, Michigan, voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a resolution that would ban the LGBTQ+ Pride flag from being flown on the city’s public property.

The resolution, proposed by Mayor Pro-Tem Muhammad Hassan, also bars any religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexual orientation group flags from being flown on city property and only allows the American flag to be flown, along with state and city flags, other national flags, and the Prisoner of War flag, according to Click on Detroit.

“Hassan and other members of the council said the LGBTQ+ community and others are welcome in Hamtramck but that they need to respect religious freedom,” according to the report. “Some proponents of the resolution said the Pride flag clashes with their faith. Several speakers from Dearborn who were leaders in protests last year against LGBTQ books spoke at the Hamtramck meeting, saying American soldiers sacrificed for the U.S. flag, not the Pride flag.”

City Councilman Nayeem Choudhury said LGBTQ+ people will not be discriminated against in the city but should also respect the religious liberty of the city’s Muslim community.

“We want to respect the religious rights of our citizens,” Choudhury said. “You guys are welcome…(but) why do you have to have the flag shown on government property to be represented? You’re already represented. We already know who you are…By making this (about) bigotry…it’s making it like you want to hate us.”

City council members also commented that the code was not about targeting a specific group, stating: “If you let one flag in, you’ll have to let all of the flags in.”

Good stuff, all of it, but this next bit I especially like.

An immigrant from Yemen spoke in favor of the resolution, stating that while the city “respect[s] all nations, cultures, and their flags…we only salute the American flag.”

The man spoke of coming to the United States from Yemen as a child and believing until he was older that America was an evil, racist country because that is what he was taught in schools. It was not until he went back to Yemen as an adult and saw what he described as “poverty and chaos…at another level” that he realized how thankful he was to live in America, where he can “worship [his] creator in peace and tranquility.”

“Unfortunately, many people in our country don’t seem to understand this. They don’t know, or they don’t want to know, what it is like to live in extreme poverty, what it is like to live under severe repression, where there’s no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion,” the man said.

“I owe my success and my livelihood first and foremost to the Creator Himself, Almighty God, then to this great country. Our soldiers fought, bled, and died in the jungles of Iwo Jima and the beaches of Omaha so that you and I can live with peace, prosperity, and freedom,” he said. “Those soldiers fought under the American flag and no other.”

“It’s shameful and embarrassing to have any other flag on public buildings. You have the freedom to display whatever you wish in your home or your private businesses. We respect all nations, cultures, and their flags, but we only salute the American flag,” he concluded, telling the city council members, “Do not waver and do not flinch, you are doing the right thing. God bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.”

My God, that guy sounds more American than all too many AINOs these days do. He really, really gets it, much more than these next two stupid-ass bints ever will.

At one point during the public comment portion of the city council session, a woman wearing a clown nose sarcastically stated that the city should change its slogan to say it “welcomes you if you’re straight” before kissing the woman next to her.

Yeh, yeh, fuck you too, freak. Tolerance, we’re all just fine with. Being forced to stand up and cheer for you, to “celebrate” you, based entirely on your sexual preference and nothing whatsoever else, though? Meh, not so much. Straight people don’t wave their private sex lives around in your face; best, then, not to be waving yours around in theirs, lest you set off an enormous powderkeg of backlash dynamite I promise you you won’t enjoy.

I DO find the clown nose wholly appropriate, even commendable for its unflinching (albeit unintentional) honesty. Other than that, though, I’m with JJ on this deal.

First, while I usually describe the Michigan town of Hamtramck as alternately “Hamas-tramck” or “Haram-tramck” I’m cheering the residents of that town, albeit with a rather wary eye. Still, regardless of the source of the attack, the rhetorical weaponry used against a common and deadly enemy is right on target and welcome.

Looks like a 50-car pileup at the Intersectionality Intersection. More, please! Just to reiterate, my wariness of the Muslim community in this country is quite justified for obvious reasons. But at least in this instance, the Islamic doctrine of the enemy of my enemy being my friend, if only temporarily, is in full operation. And this is as crucial a battlefield as ever their was one. It’s America’s children on the line and whatever hope for salvation we have as a nation, if not their own protection which is cause enough.

Bang on, if you ask me. I have to say, it’s almost shocking to see how thoroughly the Muslims in Hamtramck have assimilated, to the point of being willing to stand up in defiance of the continuing Leftist assault against core American values and beliefs with such pride and unswerving devotion. The CF chapeau is duly doffed to them for that.

Update! So’s I could put in boldface the parts I found most perceptive, most compelling, most just by-God all-American. I swear, I still just can’t get over it. Might the Hamtramck Muslims actually have put themselves, however inadvertently, at the pointy end of a Real American Renaissance here? After this, I don’t know as I’d be willing to bet against it. Again: sincere, humble, and utterly stunned kudos to them.

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Undergroundwater railroad

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Delusional, or visionary? I report, Stephen Green derides.

Biden Wants to Build an 8,000-Mile Ocean Train, and I Say Let’s Do This!

Me too, whatever “this” may turn out to be.

On today’s installment of “What the Hell Did Biden Actually Just Say?” we have the alleged president of the most powerful country in the world announcing his plan to build, and I quote, “a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean.”

Seriously.

Those are his own words. This isn’t some Deep Fake video; it’s Presidentish Joe Biden speaking Wednesday night at the League of Conservation Voters’ annual Capital Dinner, whatever that is.

The icing on the Ocean Train cake is that massive solar farm in Angola that Biden is going to build just because those jerks next door in Namibia said it couldn’t be done.

Imagine the convenience and savings of boarding a train in Los Angeles bound for Honolulu, where you could spend the first night of your rail voyage stuffing your face with poi before heading off to your final destination: beautiful downtown Kochi, India.

Not that there isn’t a kink or two in Biden’s Ocean Train.

Aww. Party pooper. Spoilsport. Wet blanket. Naysayer. Dream-killer. I say we’ll never get anywhere as a nation if we don’t indulge every demented fantasy our beloved, got-it-together pRetend ***”pResident”*** can weave out of whole cloth, no matter how self-evidently preposterous it might be. DID YOUR HARD-NOSED PRAGMATIC REALISM PUT A MAN ON MARS YET, SMART GUY?!? Yeh, I didn’t THINK so. So, y’know, there.

Update! Ace speculates on what might really be going on with this arrant horseshit.

So what is Biden talking about?

A friend tells me we’re missing the real story. He says Biden is there vowing…to help China complete its “Belt and Road Initiative,” its bid to secure a big chunk of the world’s resources by building highways and railroads through Asia and Africa.

Here are his fuller remarks:

“China has their Belt and Road Initiative. It turned out to be their debt and destruction initiative. No, I’m serious. Not a joke. Well, we’re going to win, and we’re going to help.

We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean. We have plans to build in — in Angola one of the largest solar plants in the world. I can go on, but I’m not. I’m going off-script. I’m going to get in trouble. (Laughter.)”

“We’re going to help” — we’re going to build the road network to feed China with mineral resources, because they’ve bankrupted themselves doing so. So we’re going to help and build that for them.

Makes perfect sense to me—insofar as anything Blibberin’ Biden ever says or does can be said to make sense, that is.

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Misc schtuff

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A few memes I Iiked.

GasGenEV

 

Drag Shows

Can’t remember via whom I found the two above, apologies for that. The next one hijackeded directly from WRSA.

SwampvsSewer

Heh. Makes sense to me.

Update! Urethra, I have found it! That second one comes to you via the esteemed Glypto Dropem, who is ensconced in Ye Olde CF Blogrolle under his nom de blogge 75 Milion Pissed Off Patriots. Thanks, Glypto!

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Tucker on Twitter

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Episode 3 has dropped, and it’s a gem, using as its springboard the latest Trump indictment over the phonus-balonus “mishandling of classified documents” hoodoo. And so, without further ado, it’s my distinct privilege to present…


The ep’s title, “America’s principles are at stake,” is dead-on, and incontestable. 7.4 million views in three (3) hours as of the time I posted it here, and counting. Tucker is killing it on Twitter, and I very much hope Elon realizes what a prize he’s got on his hands here.

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Put up or shut up

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Turns out, being a “sanctuary city” isn’t nearly as much fun when you have to actually, y’know, BE one.

Sanctuary Cities Seethe as Illegal Immigrants Actually Arrive
The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.

It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd’s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.

Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.

These progressive bastions were silent when the Biden administration flew planeloads of illegal immigrants to suburban airports in the middle of the night. TV coverage was prohibited, and the arrivals were secretly dispersed. Abbott’s buses, by contrast, arrive downtown greeted by local TV crews. Now you can hear the politicians screech.

These shrill noises are the sound of progressive politicians being squeezed. They proclaim their cities are “sanctuaries” but—surprise, surprise—they don’t actually want more illegal immigrants. Not that they can voice that reservation, of course, given their activist political base. Neither can they support serious efforts to manage the underlying problem by closing the border, or even trying to. Doing so would mean a humiliating return to Donald Trump’s tough policies: building the wall, requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico as their applications are processed, and encouraging Mexico’s armed forces to deploy along the border to prevent illegal crossings. Biden overturned all those policies, to cheers from his party’s left-wing base. That was when they thought it would be costless.

Now the costs are mounting, and so are the consequences for progressive politicians. The pushback is coming, not from their base but from disillusioned centrists and independents. Those voters are groaning under the costs associated with this rising tide of illegal immigrants, including welfare benefits, social services, schooling for more children, emergency room visits for uninsured patients, and a need for additional police without sufficient additional tax revenues to pay for all of them. Drug-smuggling cartels now find it much easier to cross the border, so these cities also have to cope with more heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl on the streets, more hospitalizations, and more deaths from overdoses. It’s an ugly picture.

So fucking what if it is? It’s the selfsame picture that smug shitlibs and their pet-poodle politicos have drawn for small Texas border towns, thinking themselves safely insulated from the consequences of their sanctimony by simple geographical distance.

Abbott’s goal is to squeeze the vise tighter on those politicians, to force them to change course on national immigration policy and lessen the flood of immigrants into his state—or else pay the price in their home states.

Of course it is—and what could possibly be fairer than that? Now that Abbott and DeSantis have forced them to put their money where their mouths are, both literally and figuratively, they ain’t digging it. How very odd. Dare we say it: H8RRRRZZZ!!! BIGOTS!!! RACISTS!!!! MURDERERS!!!!!!

Heh. Suck on it, shitlibs.

1

No-so-famous last words

Posted on      by     

Do we get some sort of weird premonition, some uncanny sense of impending doom, when our death approaches? Sometimes, yeah.

What were Jimi Hendrix last words?
Jimi Hendrix, one of the most influential guitarists of the 1960s, died at Samarkand Hotel in London on September 18. 1970. He was 27 years old.

Cause of death: Asphyxia due to aspiration to vomit, contributed to by barbiturate intoxication.

His last words were “I need help bad, man”.

Aside from that, a poem he wrote was found at his deathbed. This was the last sentence of the poem:

HendrixFinalWords

Thank you.

Kinda creepy, no? Also beautifully poetic, and all too true. But still. Calls for another Hendrix embed, I do believe.

Man, dig that crazy wad o’ homemade pop filter on his mic! As the video shows, it was awfully windy in Howaya that afternoon, which explains it.

Also, note ye well at :29 in the vid, how deftly Jimi steps off the Vox 846 wah pedal and onto the trusty ol’ Fuzz Face, to call forth the legendary Hendrix crunchiness from that pretty white Strat. Then, at around :36 seconds in, watch in humbled awe as he swats the pickup selector switch to fastly transition from the fat, throaty sound of the neck-pickup position to the twangy squall of the wrong-way-tilted (since he was playing a right-handed axe upside down, see) bridge p/u, swapping one trademark Hendrix sound™ for the other in a lightning flash of truly inspired playing.

It’s Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell for backup, alas, nary a Buddy Miles or Noel Redding in sight. But DAMN, that stage-full of Marshall DSL Pro full-stacks makes me drool.

Boat: MISSED

Posted on      by     

Arizona sure did that with Kari Lake.


Well said, ma’am, and good on ya once again.

2

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