Brilliant! – Page 58

So you want to play, do ya?

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Mike

Fucking BEAUTIFUL, man.

Chicago, West Garfield Park neighborhood. Man sucker punches a man from behind. Man pulls gun and blows him away. pic.twitter.com/kczPBx0GMH

— D. Scott @eclipsethis2003 (@eclipsethis2003) September 8, 2022

Been waiting on this forever, seems like. Sure, plenty of misguided tools will kvell and kvetch that dropping one feral scumsack ain’t gonna put an end to the Knockout Game, and perhaps they’re right. But I can for damned sure name you ONE that will never do it again.

(Via Miguel at GFZ)

Everything old is new again

Posted on September 7, 2022 by Mike

Mark Twain is claimed to have said “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn’t, but after reading Divemedic’s ingenious post, I’m saying to hell with all that; it definitely repeats itself, as far as I’m concerned.

In a nation weakened by worldwide economic issues and a world that has grown weary of war and strife, a chief executive struggles

The head law enforcement officer of the nation, acting on orders of the chief executive, orders a raid on the opposition party’s headquarters. There, the police find evidence of seditious material, including a plot to attack public buildings. The chief executive takes to the airwaves with claims that the opposition is planning to attack the capitol.

Shortly thereafter, the capitol is attacked, and one of the men arrested in an unemployed construction worker who admits to being under the command of the leader of the opposition party. The chief executive declares, “we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.”

A few hours later, the chief executive issued an executive order that effectively abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and the press; legalized phone tapping and interception of correspondence; and that 4,000 people be arrested, imprisoned and tortured.

Later that year, a sensational criminal trial got under way. The man who burned the Capitol, the leader of the opposition party, and several key figures of the opposition party went on trial for sedition.

As the trial proceeded, a different kind of trial captured the public discourse. A member of the opposition undertook an independent investigation of the destruction of the Capitol. The combined research resulted in the publication of The Brown Book on the Insurrection. It included early accounts police brutality, as well as an argument that the insurrectionists were simply pawns. The chief executive’s party members were the real criminals, the book argued, and they orchestrated the insurrection to consolidate political power. The book became a bestseller, translated into 24 languages and sold around Europe and the U.S.

At any rate, a full 5% of the legislature was declared to be in league with the accused insurrection. They were imprisoned and held for a trial that would never come. Their seats were left vacant, and the leader’s party was free to hold legislative referendums without them present.

Fearing that the insurrectionists were gaining enough power to become a threat to the very nation, the legislature passed an enabling act that temporarily granted emergency legislative powers to the chief executive so that he and the head of the nation’s law enforcement could deal with the spreading insurrection. Soon thereafter, the chief executive passed away after a sudden and brief illness. The chief law enforcement executive then declared himself to be the new chief executive, then used his emergency powers to pass a law declaring himself to be the permanent head of government and disbanded the legislature. He ordered jailed anyone who opposed his new powers.

Read on for the O Henry-esque twist at the end.

No easy pickin’s

Posted on September 7, 2022September 7, 2022 by Mike

I don’t know much at all about Repub candidate for Arizona governor Kari Lake. But so far, I like what I’m seeing.

Last week, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake masterfully turned the tables on a reporter who thought he was asking her a gotcha question about accepting the results of an election.

“You feel like Joe Biden is dividing the country. Do you feel Donald Trump is doing the same by falsely telling people he won that election when he lost it?” the reporter asked.

“How does that divide the country? Questioning an election where there are obviously problems is dividing the country?” she asked. “Since when can we not ask questions about our elections? As a journalist for many years—I was a journalist after 2016 and I distinctly remember many people just like you, asking a lot of questions about the 2016 election results and nobody tried to shut you up.”

Lake was hardly finished tearing this reporter a new one.

“Nobody tried to tell Hillary Clinton to shut up. Nobody tried to tell Kamala Harris when she was questioning the legitimacy of these electronic voting machines to stop. We have freedom of speech in this country and you of all that people should appreciate that. You’re supposedly a journalist. You should appreciate that. So I don’t see how asking questions about an election where there were many problems is ‘dividing’ a country. What I do see divided a country is shutting people down, censoring people, canceling people, trying to destroy people’s lives when they do ask questions. Last I heard we still have the Constitution. It’s hanging by a thread thanks to some of the work some people in this area have done. But we’re going to save that Constitution and we’re going to bring back freedom of speech. And maybe someday you’ll thank us for that.”

Well said, ma’am, but not bloody likely. After all, they’re steadfastly against freedom of speech for anyone but themselves, the Constitution, and freedom generally.

The greatest airplane story EVAR

Posted on September 2, 2022September 2, 2022 by Mike

Anybody who has even the slightest tinge of affection for the WW2-era piston-engine classics is going to LOVE this one.

On 26 May 1940, No 19 Squadron Leader Geoffrey Stephenson left RAF Duxford airfield in Spitfire N3200, piloting the aircraft on its first and only mission. Before the Battle of Britain, Duxford’s Spitfires were recruited in the defence of Operation Dynamo.

Dynamo was the emergency evacuation of the British Expeditionary Forces from the French port of Dunkirk by the Royal Navy, and had air cover from all available Royal Air Force aircraft – including Spitfire N3200.

Now, 82 years on, the recovered aircraft stands proudly at IWM Duxford, just a short walk from the very same hangar where the No 19 Squadron’s Spitfires were kept during World War Two. Spitfire N3200 has also been fully restored to flying condition, and is set to take flight once again at Duxford Battle of Britain Air Show on 10 and 11 September 2022.

But what happened to Spitfire N3200 in May 1940, and how did it return to its home at Duxford?

The Brylcreem Boys of No 19 Squadron were tasked with a crucial mission in the renowned Miracle of Dunkirk: flying CAS as close-pressed hordes of British, Belgian, and French footsloggers were plucked from the beach and ferried across the Channel to safety. And then…

After shooting down a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber, Stephenson was himself shot down, crash-landing on a beach at Sangatte, near Calais. He was captured, remaining a prisoner for the rest of the war.

While Stephenson spent the war imprisoned, including a stint at the notorious Colditz Castle, Spitfire N3200 sank slowly into the sand.

Which is when events took a REALLY interesting turn.

Over 45 years later in 1986, Spitfire N3200 emerged from the sand on a French beach. Strong currents had revealed the crashed aircraft, and so began the process of excavating the wreck, which although largely intact, not much could be salvaged.

The Spitfire’s pilot, Geoffrey Stephenson, survived the war but was not able to see his aircraft dragged from the beach. He was tragically killed in America in 1954 during a test flight.

In 2000, Dr Thomas Kaplan and Simon Marsh commissioned Historic Flying Limited to restore Spitfire N3200 to its former glory. Only 4 years later, the aircraft returned to the skies.

As you can see, glory is most definitely the mot juste for this war-eagle reborn.

Beautiful, no? And with such a unique story to tell, too.

(Via WeirdDave)

By their friends enemies shall ye know them

Posted on August 31, 2022August 31, 2022 by Mike

First, our bud Aesop uncorked one of his patented unleavened rhetorical bloodlettings, to wit:

In any Emergency Department in the country, he wouldn’t be deemed competent to make basic medical decisions for himself, and would be detained for a psychiatric evaluation as gravely disabled. He doesn’t have sufficient orientation to be allowed to wander freely in society, and would be locked up for his own good.

Not even twenty months into his fraudulent regime, and his functional incompetence and senility is far too big to hide or ignore, and is plainly visible 8000 miles away. And if they’re seeing it this clearly in Sydney, it’s long since been noted in Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, and Teheran.

The far scarier question that follows:

What cabal of unelected behind-the-curtains coup-masters are actually running the United States’ executive branch, including the DoJ and the armed farces?

This pants-shitting fucktard can’t even run a lawnmower, and any federal agency that refused to do anything he said would be on firm legal grounds due to his basic mental incompetence.

And clearly, his minions and their house-organ media buddies have decided that since they pulled off one coup with the 2020 fake election, another ongoing one now is simply child’s play.

This is the point in world affairs where DefCon levels take on an algorithm of their own, as sphincters pucker up in nearly a dozen important places.

This big-bore salvo against God-Emperor Joey Rapefingers (Piss Be Upon Him) and, by extension, Our Sacred Democracy™ (GAG, SPIT) itself, moved Goolag to get itself busy Not Being Evil, in their own Bizarro-World sort of way.

Goolag/Blogger have apparently throttled all traffic to this site, shortly after the previous post was published, with recorded site hits dwindling to a number lower than the number of commenters, which is impossible.

We have just watched the number of visitors going backwards with each refresh, so in fact, they’re actually erasing visits and views in real time.

Aesop’s response? Exactly what those of us who have known him a while might’ve expected it to be.

Heh. What can one say but: nice shot, man.

ADDENDUM: Aesop, shoot me a kite at mike at this-url-dot-etc when ya can, brother. Got a suggestion for ya I think you might possibly enjoy.

Goose, meet gander

Posted on August 26, 2022August 26, 2022 by Mike

Suck a fat one, bitch. In writing, no less.

For the second time, the Pentagon denied a request on Monday by Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser to activate the National Guard to assist with thousands of migrants who have been arriving in the nation’s capital in recent months.

Bowser first asked for National Guard help last month, but it was rejected by the Pentagon on Aug. 4. She then sent another letter on Aug. 11, requesting that 150 National Guard troops be deployed to “help prevent a prolonged humanitarian crisis in our nation’s capital resulting from the daily arrival of migrants.”

Defense Department executive secretary Kelly Bulliner Holly wrote in a letter to Bowser on Monday that the D.C. National Guard is not trained to assist migrants and activation would lead to “diminished readiness” for the troops.

“The DCNG has no specific experience in or training for this kind of mission or unique skills for providing facility management, feeding, sanitation or ground support,” Holly wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by Fox News.

About 7,000 migrants have been bused from Texas to Washington, D.C., since April and another 900 have arrived in New York City, according to Gov. Greg Abbott’s office.

“Before we began busing migrants to New York, it was just Texas and Arizona that bore the brunt of all the chaos and problems that come with it,” Abbott said Friday. “Now, the rest of America can understand exactly what is going on.”

Oh, I’d say heartland America understands well enough by now. As always, it’s the Sanctuary City-dwelling shitlibs, long accustomed to scrupulously shielding themselves from the consequences of the idiocies they piously inflict on the rest of us, who are only now being schooled by Abbott’s ingenious turning of the tables on them.

“Past time for half measures”

Posted on August 26, 2022 by Mike

Vin Suprynowicz says so, and he ain’t wrong about that.

America is under attack.

Denial is the first instinct. But denial has not been working.

Are we really to believe that – absent some malign influence backed up with massive support from entities who wish to bring America low, to defeat via some “non-traditional” form of warfare a nation whose military they dare not challenge – the normal development of American culture could have brought us, over a mere generation or two, from kindly schoolmarms insisting that their young charges master the difference between “there,” “their,” and “they’re,” to our current crop of green- or purple-haired freaks with staples in their faces, indoctrinating eminently suggestible kids as young as 6 or even 5 that doctors often “just take a guess” when declaring a newborn is a boy or a girl, that huge numbers of children are in fact “girls trapped in boys’ bodies,” or vice versa?

Is it really reasonable to assume that – absent some kind of organized, malign, and well-funded campaign by those who wish to bring America low, we could have gone in a mere couple of generations from doctors who took seriously their Hippocratic oath to “first, do no harm,” to a crop of young Dr. Mengeles who today happily perform on boys as young as 15 or 16 — too young to have ever known the pleasures (yes, and tribulations) of marriage or parenthood what is called, in a breathtaking example or Orwellian euphemism, “Gender Affirmation Surgery”?

“I’m going to ‘affirm’ this teen-age boy’s gender by amputating his cock and carving between his legs a fake vagina which leads nowhere, so he’ll never be capable of experiencing sexual pleasure, let alone capable of becoming a parent as either a man OR a woman. That’ll be $10,000, please.”

You think such demonic perversions were thought up by someone who wishes this nation WELL?

He goes on from there to cover ALL the bases, mentioning ALL the issues, then explains his plan for dealing with the whole mess, including:

The Congress should declare war against two genocidal international criminal cabals: against the Chinese Communist Party and against Klaus Schwab and his “World Economic Forum.” They dreamed this stuff up, they’ve been at it for decades, they’ve made no secret of their goals as they and Bill “Pearly” Gates and that snarling troll Greta Thunberg now try to use their fake “Global Warming crisis” to drive farmers off the land and get us to switch to bug sandwiches as we shiver in the dark.

This need NOT mean mobilizing an army or millions of men. But it would quickly accomplish many things. First, anyone accepting pay or “investments” from, or advancing the agenda of, the Chinese Communist Party or of the World Economic Forum would be committing the crime of “treason in wartime” – punishable with a quick hanging, no years of appeals. Any members of our armed forces – or any civilian granted a Letter of Marque (also authorized in the Constitution) who encountered members of the Chinese Communist Party, or Klaus Schwab or any members of his team, anywhere, anytime, would be authorized to blow their brains out immediately. This would not be murder – it would be an authorized act of war, legal under the Law of Nations, the same way we’ve always dealt with pirates. They started it.

I gotta say, I like it already. Is there more, you ask? Why, yes. Yes, there certainly is.

A FEW NEW LAWS

We may also need a few new laws.

Laws need not be impossible to interpret by the average citizen. They used to be written in plain English, and should be, again. The Congress, right away in January of 2023, can and should enact a law stating “Since those who believe in Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming have been shown to be immune from scientific proofs that those beliefs are equivalent to a belief in fairies and unicorns – no perceptible global warming in 20 years; polar bear populations exploding instead of going extinct; polar ice caps not melting as confidently predicted, island nations not sinking under the seas as confidently predicted – it is therefore found, determined and established by this Congress as a matter of law that belief in Catastrophic Man-Made Global warming is a religion.

“Under the First Amendment, anyone holding these beliefs is free to continue doing so, as a free practice of religion. HOWEVER, the Constitution also guarantees that no religion shall be ‘established’ as the official state religion by this government, its doctrines or beliefs being imposed whether they like it or not on the populace in general, whose members thereby suffer expense, inconvenience, or disability through their failure to adhere to and abide by such tenets and beliefs.

“Therefore, effective immediately upon passage of this Act, any and all laws, edicts, regulations, rules, or executive orders tending to restrict, limit, regulate or inhibit industrial development, rapid and effective development and use of this nation’s vast fossil fuel reserves, or the development, manufacture or sale of anything, to include but not limited to pipelines, drilling equipment, refineries, light bulbs, or any restriction on any industrial facility emitting any quantity of the necessary, harmless, and beneficial gas carbon dioxide, based on the supposed desire or ‘need’ to limit ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change,’ is hereby immediately repealed and rendered null and void, to include but not limited to regulations aimed at limiting ‘carbon emissions,’ ‘greenhouse gas emissions,’ ‘bovine flatulence,’ etc.

“The Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Department of Energy shall show, 90 days from passage of this Act, irrefutable concrete evidence to the satisfaction of the majority of this Congress of massive and dramatic progress toward stimulating industrial and energy development within the United States – to include issuance of numerous oil and gas drilling leases, rapid approval of the immediate construction of pipelines, encouragement of the upgrading and expansion of refineries, factories, steel mills, etc. — and eliminating any and all curbs on such industrial and energy development which had been put in place since 1970 in obeisance to the cult of “Man-Made Global Warming,” which is hereby banished from use as an excuse for any regulation by any federal U.S. government agency, the Congress of the United States hereby officially finding and declaring such ‘Green’ religious beliefs, when used to stymie or limit industrial or fossil-fuel development via government regulation, to be ‘bullshit.’

“Should either the EPA of the Department of Energy fail to show such massive and dramatic progress by the 90-th day from enactment of this Act, the agency so failing shall be closed and abolished immediately, with all employees dismissed from employment with the U.S. government and barred from any future employment with or by the U.S. government, with no other agency being allowed to take up the tasks once performed by said agency or department, no further legislation being necessary to effect such closures.”

As the man says, they can, and they should, yes. Alas for us all, though, we know full well that there’s absolutely no chance whatsoever that they will. As beautiful a dream as Vin’s proposal no doubt is, it’s still only that: a dream, no more. The prerequisite condition remains in full effect: first, the streets must be made to run red with Commie blood. After that, the possibilities will begin to open up swiftly.

Good riddance to bad rubbish

Posted on August 25, 2022August 25, 2022 by Mike

Okay: first, this happened.

DeSantis on Fauci: “I’m just sick of seeing him. I know he says he’s gonna retire. Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac!”pic.twitter.com/zB20gKOiZZ

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) August 24, 2022

Needless to say, being a diehard DeSantis fan myself as well as someone who despises the malignant, lying dwarf Fauxci with every fiber of his being, I thoroughly enjoyed Da Guv’s statement—as did his audience, who apparently responded with, as noted crawly-thing David French sniffily sniffed, “wild cheering.” Unsurprisingly, French was hardly the only dainty and sanctimonious NeverTrumporrhoid who found DeSantis’ laugh line upsetting; Ace posts several other like examples of dudgeon most high, before uncorking a hilarious fusillade of his own.

Two interesting points about this Fake Upper-Crust Sensibility thing:

First, it’s fake. This is a competition among weak and inferior men to prove themselves strong and superior. They can’t prove themselves strong and superior in actual strength or superiority, so they change the criteria to better fit them, that is, a more feminine sort of competition they could actually beat other men at. Namely, “refinement,” taste, and a capacity to be offended and terrified by tiny things like humorous jibes and mice skittering across the kitchen floor.

There are actual objective criteria to determine who is the strongest, the smartest, etc., but it’s up for grabs to say who has “the finest taste.” So Noah Blum can compete in the Princess and the Pea Olympics and have a very good chance of winning, especially because most actual men would not compete in such a delicate contest.

Second, this is again just a game of showing hatred for the dreaded Lower Orders. David French and Noah Blum and the rest of the Fake Aristo Swells are always straining to discover exciting new Class Distinctions they can adorn themselves with to prove they are not like the raucous and unseemly Working Classes. A feather of delicate sensibilities worn behind the ear, a ribbon of refined taste in Marvel Movie Appreciation dangled over the heart.

Anything to show that the New Nobility is different than and superior to those thick-fingered White Niggers that vote for Trump and think that a nation’s borders should be enforced.

Fuck off, fairies. Go knit a doily for your wife’s boyfriend to put his drink on.

Oh, and French: Have the lambs stopped screaming, French?

Heh. SIDE NOTE: Ace decided to asterisk-out the N-word in his post, likely in the interests of politesse. But as CF Lifers will already be aware, I’m hindered by no such compunctions myself, so I went ahead and just said it right out loud, in front of God and everybody.

As for Fraudci: physically, literally booting his worthless ass across the Potomac of right ought to be the very least of that good-enough-for-government-work rectal polyp’s worries. The damage he did during his overextended sinecure as a top-level FederalGovCo stooge calls for one hell of a lot more, and worse.

Foolin’ around

Posted on August 16, 2022August 16, 2022 by Mike

SO. Been futzing around a bit with the WP posting interface, which I can’t even begin to describe to you how much I despise, when what to my wondering eyes didst appear in the toolbar above the composition textbox a mysterious icon which, when hovered over, describes its function thusly, and I quote: “Select a part of text and ask readers for feedback (inline commenting).”

WELL. [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”ei7ya9rie7″ question=”Any comments on this part?” opened=”0″]Intriguing, no?[/wpdiscuz-feedback] I think it is, and very much so. That being the case, if you should see [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”2lsznmrjyi” question=”Comments? Complaints? Thoughts?” opened=”1″]some bizarre icon in a post[/wpdiscuz-feedback] that you never came across here before, that’s almost certainly what it is. Let me know what y’all think of it.

Update! Well, it seems to work quite nicely. Had to disable several conflicting and/or redundant plugins related to the comments function, which I probably should have done a long time ago anyway.

Goats: gotten

Posted on August 13, 2022August 13, 2022 by Mike

Want. One.

pic.twitter.com/ID8qlU1nJp

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) July 30, 2022

As you would expect, shitlibs across the nation are drenching their Underoos over the horror of it all.

A Wednesday hit piece from NPR sought to link the license plate and the Gadsden flag to “dangerous far-right extremist ideology.”

“The state can’t claim a lack of knowledge about what this image represents to most of the public,” said a representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center quoted by NPR.

The SPLC representative linked the flag to the Jan. 6, 2021, disturbance at the U.S. Capitol. The flag has been used for decades by libertarians and other critics of government overreach — far before the Capitol incursion.

More pathetic scree-scree-screeing over at GP.

Wheels within wheels

Posted on August 13, 2022August 13, 2022 by Mike

Kuenstler uses a characteristically excellent Sundance deep-dive (a four-parter; part 1 can be found here) concerning, and I quote, “how the original sin of RussiaGate metastasized into the stage-four cancer of institutional necrosis that culminated in this week’s raid on Mar-a-Lago” as the springboard for some seriously intriguing analysis of his own.

The gist is: it turns out that the president does not have sole authority, in practice, to declassify and release government documents. With the rise of the security state, many new procedures have been erected within that massive labyrinth to prevent it or slow-walk it. The most effective has been to make the president himself a target of, or a material witness in, drawn-out investigations. That was the exact purpose of the Mueller exercise. Any exculpatory documents released by Mr. Trump — for instance, the complete unredacted text exchanges of FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — could have been used to hang an obstruction of justice charge on the president.

Mr. Trump adroitly avoided that trap, and many other legal pitfalls the deep state laid for him, and might have won reelection but for the well-organized ballot fraud of 2020. But the epic blunders of “Joe Biden” are giving Mr. Trump, and the movement behind him, a pretty good shot at routing the incumbent regime. Doing so, first in the 2022 midterms and then in the 2024 presidential election, portends a now quite visible effort coming to dismantle that reckless, unelected “fourth branch” of government. So, the intel-and-surveillance agencies are fighting for their lives — and the actual humans in charge must be keenly aware of their criminal liabilities.

Despite all attempts to disable him in office, Mr. Trump, as president, got to see an awful lot of classified material, including all the evidence of Hillary Clinton’s Russia Collusion hoax, abetted by the FBI, the DOJ, CIA, and DOD, plus all the lawless shenanigans that took place in the FISA court. A lot of it was assembled when, late in the game, Mr. Trump was finally able to appoint Directors of National Intelligence he could trust — Ric Grenell and then John Ratcliffe — who wrested many documents out of the foot-dragging agencies. Further maneuvers by artful Attorney General William Barr — the appointment of John Durham as Special Counsel and his drawn-out investigations — kept Mr. Trump from releasing any declassified RussiaGate material ever since. The catch was: he still had bales of that evidence in his possession among the personal papers he took with him from the White House.

Now, it also happens that in March of this year Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in Florida against Hillary Clinton and many entities and persons who abetted the construction of RussiaGate. The person assigned to preside over the case was magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart, a one-time DOJ attorney who had been involved in the 2007 Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking prosecution, and who then mysteriously switched sides in mid-litigation and signed on as a lawyer for Epstein. Epstein was soon let off of serious charges with a wrist-slap, amid suspicions that he was an intel agency operative who required protection. And, of course, now Mr. Epstein is dead, offed under highly mysterious circumstances while in federal custody.

Bruce Reinhart was involved in the 2013 government defense of IRS officer Lois Lerner, who never answered for targeting conservative organizations for tax punishment and “losing” thousands of emails pertaining to the cases. Bruce Reinhart also left a long record of social media posts denouncing Mr. Trump for one thing or another. Yet, he remained as presiding judge over the Trump lawsuit against Hillary, et al., in Florida since March and then suddenly recused himself on June 22 of this year. Naturally, many of the aforesaid unclassified documents in Mr. Trump’s possession would be introduced as evidence in an effort to prove that Hillary Clinton sought to defame and defraud him over the confected Russia Collusion story.

And so it happened that Bruce Reinhart was just the right person for the FBI to seek a warrant from, though the choice looks ludicrous now. And hence, the desperate raid on Mar-a-Lago to get that trove of evidence, especially with an election looming that could transform congress and lead next year to a raft of investigations into the corrupt intel-and-surveillance deep state. Of course, it’s laughable to imagine there aren’t copies of all that material in other places, so it’s not as though the FBI can make the evidence just disappear. But the apparent object of the move is to hastily convict Mr. Trump in a DC federal district court on any Mickey Mouse charge involving his dispute with the National Archives that would, theoretically, prevent him from running again in 2024.

One must wonder if Mr. Trump did not catch the FBI (and DOJ) in a “rope-a-dope” operation of his own.

Well, all I can think to say is that I did NOT see any of that coming. Puts me in mind of a wonderful scene from a wonderful old movie, featuring the wonderful Wilford Brimley in his first major role.

Be sure to go read Sundance’s four-parter also; it’s good, fascinating stuff, and well worth your while.

Update! What, did y’all think I was just winding my watch when I told ya’s Sundance’s deep-dive was fascinating stuff?

After many years of granular research about the intelligence apparatus inside our government, in the summer of 2020 I visited Washington DC to ask specific questions. My goal was to go where the influence agents within government actually operate, and to discover the people deep inside the institutions no one elected, and few people pay attention to.

It was during this process when I discovered how information is purposefully put into containment silos; essentially a formal process to block the flow of information between agencies and between the original branches. While frustrating to discover, the silo effect was important because understanding the communication between networks leads to our ability to reconcile conflict between what we perceive and what’s actually taking place.

After days of research and meetings in DC during 2020; amid a town that was serendipitously shut down due to COVID-19; I found a letter slid under the door of my room in a nearly empty hotel with an introduction of sorts. The subsequent discussions were perhaps the most important. After many hours of specific questions and answers on specific examples, I realized why our nation is in this mess. That is when I discovered the fourth and superseding branch of government, the Intelligence Branch.

I am going to explain how the Intelligence Branch works: (1) to control every other branch of government; (2) how it functions as an entirely independent branch of government with no oversight; (3) how and why it was created to be independent from oversight; (4) what is the current mission of the IC Branch, and most importantly (5) who operates it.

The Intelligence Branch is an independent functioning branch of government, it is no longer a subsidiary set of agencies within the Executive Branch as most would think. To understand the Intelligence Branch, we need to drop the elementary school civics class lessons about three coequal branches of government and replace that outlook with the modern system that created itself.

The Intelligence Branch functions much like the State Dept, through a unique set of public-private partnerships that support it. Big Tech industry collaboration with intelligence operatives is part of that functioning, almost like an NGO. However, the process is much more important than most think. In this problematic perspective of a corrupt system of government, the process is the flaw – not the outcome.

There are people making decisions inside this little known, unregulated and out-of-control branch of government that impact every facet of our lives.

None of the people operating deep inside the Intelligence Branch were elected; and our elected representative House members genuinely do not know how the system works. I assert this position affirmatively because I have talked to House and Senate staffers, including the chiefs of staff for multiple House & Senate committee seats. They are not malicious people; however, they are genuinely clueless of things that happen outside their silo. That is part of the purpose of me explaining it, with examples, in full detail with sunlight.

We begin….

And with that, our boy is off and running. Fascinating? What it is is gripping, that’s what; spellbinding, even. At the very, very least, it puts a whole helluva lot of heretofore puzzling shit into an entirely different light. Gonna take me a day or three to go through all this and then digest it for comprehension purposes, something I fully intend to do.

Sundance has for many years now been producing some genuinely awe-inspiring work, earning himself quite a lot of well-deserved respect and admiration for it along the way. But this has the look of being a true magnum opus for him, and I doff my cap most humbly to him. Thanks so much for all you do from Ye Olde Colde Furye Blogge, Sundance.

Dusty in here, ain’t it?

Posted on August 10, 2022August 10, 2022 by Mike

If this one doesn’t have you puddling up by the end, I’ll thank you to just kindly keep your lamentable dearth of even the smallest trace of humanity to yourself, aiight? Thenk yew.

The man and woman in this vid are truly angels in human shape, far as I’m concerned, an assertion with which I will brook no dissent. Via MisHum, dedicated to Bill, who I know will love it as much as I do myself.

Great one gone

Posted on August 3, 2022August 3, 2022 by Mike

The greatest sports announcer in history has finally left the stadium.

Legendary sports announcer, and voice of the Dodgers for a record-setting 67 years, Vincent Edward “Vin” Scully, 94, peacefully at his home in suburban Los Angeles.

I grew up listening to Vin. Summer hasn’t been the same since that awful day when he hung it up in 2016 and left the broadcast booth. I’ve heard a lot of sports announcers over the years. Blessed to have come of age with Dick Enberg doing L.A. football, Chick Hearn doing the Lakers, and Vin for the Dodgers. Now, all gone.

Scully wasn’t just the best of those three legends, he was the best of all time, and I do not say so lightly, nor merely out of home team pride. He did everything for everyone, and did it well, but it was baseball he loved above all, and baseball he made richer for calling the play-by-play. Not just for the Dodgers, but for every player and team he ever watched.

You couldn’t watch a home game at Dodger stadium for most of my lifetime without hearing him on 40,000 radios from home plate to the bleachers. He was that good. If you went to a game, you took a radio to listen to Vin, because he was going to tell you more about what you were looking at firsthand than any five other guys, if you gave them a week to rehearse.

Any late spring to late summer night, after sunset and before dusk, the summer heat fading away, and his voice was the soundtrack to life, a lullaby while lounging in a backyard hammock as the night sky deepened from indigo to starlit black, and an under-appreciated feast for the ears, anywhere from the pre-game show to the post-game wrap-up.

He called Sandy Koufax’s perfect game. He called Hank Aaron’s 715th homer. And he called this golden baseball moment, one for the ages. Listen to it, and watch, as I did as it happened, and imagine hearing this for up to 162 games for 67 years.

Well said. And what a moment it was, too; I’ve run this one here myself, and was watching on the TeeWee when it happened just as Aesop was. The whole Game 1 saga was a pluperfect example of what made baseball worth following, over and above all other sports—precisely the kind of magic that only baseball could produce, magic which Vin Scully understood and appreciated better than anybody before or since.

It was late here on the East Coast when it all went down; when Gibson took his winning swing, it was one of those instances where absolutely every true baseball man watching immediately knew in his gut that that ball was departing Dodger Stadium for sure and certain. Despite having been a lifelong Braves fan myself and therefore having nothing invested in who would come out on top in that year’s Fall Classic, I nonetheless leapt out of my easy chair with a lung-scarring shout of purest joy that brought my slumbering girlfriend rushing out into the living room, frightened witless that something terrible, something awful, had just happened.

To the contrary, something extraordinary, something truly wonderful, just had. It was well after midnight here; I had to be at work at 5 the next AM, and cared not a whit that I’d be paying all day for the lateness of the hour. Kirk Gibson had just provided all the world with one of those exhilarating, unforgettable baseball moments that every baseball fan lives for, but somehow never really expects. Gibson’s Miracle Shot discombobulated and demoralized Tony LaRussa’s heavily-favored Oakland A’s so badly that Tom LaSorda’s underdog Dodgers ended up taking the Series in just five games, against all odds and expectations.

And who but the incomparable Vin Scully could possibly have done a better job of calling it for us? A blow-by-blow summation of the whole incredible thing:

Unknown to the fans and the media at the time, Kirk Gibson was watching the game on television while undergoing physical therapy in the Dodgers’ clubhouse. At some point during the game, television cameras scanned the Dodgers dugout and commentator Vin Scully, working for NBC for the 1988 postseason, observed that Gibson was “nowhere to be found”. This spurred Gibson to call for Mitch Poole, the team ball boy, to set up the tee for him to take some warm up swings. After a series of warm up swings, Gibson told Poole to go get Lasorda for an evaluation. After a brief stint to get Tommy’s attention, Pool informed Lasorda that Gibson was taking practice swings in the clubhouse, where Lasorda went back for the evaluation. Shortly there after, Gibson was seen in the dugout wearing his batting helmet Along the way, NBC’s Bob Costas could hear Gibson’s agonized-sounding grunts after every hit.

A’s closer Dennis Eckersley came on to pitch the ninth to close it out for (A’s ace hurler Dave “Smoke”) Stewart. After retiring the first two batters (Mike Scioscia and Jeff Hamilton), Eckersley’s former A’s teammate Mike Davis, batting for Alfredo Griffin, walked on five pitches. During Davis’ at-bat, Dave Anderson initially entered the on-deck circle to hit for Alejandro Peña. Eckersley pitched carefully to Davis because the A’s remembered all of the home runs he hit for the A’s a year earlier, not because the light-hitting Anderson was on deck, as popularly believed. After Davis walked, Lasorda called back Anderson and sent up a hobbled Kirk Gibson to the plate, amidst cheers from the Dodger Stadium crowd. Gibson bravely fouled off Eckersley’s best offerings, demonstrating how badly he was hurting. On one foul, Gibson hobbled towards first and prompted Scully to quip, “And it had to be an effort to run THAT far.” After Gibson fouled off several pitches, Davis stole second on ball three. On the next pitch, the 8th of the at-bat, Gibson, slammed a backdoor slider into the right field bleachers to win the game. The footage of Gibson hobbling around the bases on both hurt legs and pumping his fist as he rounded second became an iconic baseball film highlight.

Gibson would never bat again in the Series, and his walk-off homer in Game 1 marked the first time that a World Series game ended with a come-from-behind home run. In a somewhat forgotten detail of this game highlighting the teamwork that was this Dodgers team’s trademark all season, Gibson’s heroics still would not have been possible without the earlier home run by the man replacing Gibson in the line-up, Mickey Hatcher.

Gibson became the second player ever to record a walk-off hit with two outs and his team trailing in the bottom of the ninth inning of a World Series game, following Cookie Lavagetto in the 1947 World Series. Only one other player, Brett Phillips in the 2020 World Series, has since accomplished this feat.

A bona fide miracle indeed, one that will shine forever in the pantheon of America’s Pastime. And how profoundly grateful I am that the great Vin Scully was on hand to do the play-by-play in his own inimitable style. Aesop’s note-perfect finale really says it all.

Imagine being so good you could shut up for over a minute on live TV after one of the greatest moments in sports history, and just let the microphone tell the story. You don’t have to imagine it. Vin just did it.

Annnnnd bingo. Full props to color man Joe Garagiola as well, Scully’s partner in the booth that night and a damned fine announcer in his own right, for being astute enough himself to just keep quiet and let this most beautiful of baseball moments speak for itself.

Rest thee well, Vin Scully, and thanks so very much for all you gave us. You shan’t ever be forgotten.

The Silent Service

Posted on July 31, 2022 by Mike

Can’t remember where I ran across this one, but it’s truly fascinating stuff.

Nukes, Nubs And Coners: The Unique Social Hierarchy Aboard A Nuclear Submarine
Getting assigned to your first sub doesn’t make you a submariner and once you become one you’ll find yourself in a social structure unlike any other.

Living in a machine with over 100 sailors requires a person to be flexible socially and sometimes physically. I spent two decades on United States Navy submarines performing sonar duties among eccentric personalities in incredibly stressful situations. When sailors report to their first submarine, they are joining a work culture unlike any other. Surrounded by crew members busily moving about tight spaces and narrow walkways, announcements over the circuit boxes, roving watchstanders, equipment humming to 400hz fans, it can be anxiety-inducing to any sailor.

That is why every new crewmember starts as a NUB. But, if they work hard and learn the systems, they will earn their dolphins and become a member of another entirely unique subculture within the grander social hierarchy that exists within the confines of the submerged tube they call home for months on end.

Here’s is what is expected of a new crew member and a bit about the various ‘unique’ groups of people aboard the submarine, one of which the NUB will find themselves an integral part of once they get minted a submariner.

The NUB
A new crewmember is a Non-Useful Body, or NUB. He or she uses our limited supply of space, water, food, and oxygen. They are not welcome, but BUPERS (Bureau of Personnel) keeps sending them. The NUB is easily identifiable as he will be the only crewman wearing a command ball cap with the ship’s name and no Dolphins symbol on the front. They have their qualification card in their rear pocket at all times and had better have a small notebook in their hand for studying. They do not have movie privileges unless they are a “Hot Runner.” Hot Runner refers to a torpedo self-starting despite the fact it hasn’t been launched yet. Very dangerous, but Submariners like that kind of initiative in the NUB.

Everyone, officer or enlisted, is a NUB when they report to their first submarine. They are treated with contempt. In the case of the officer, it’s respectful contempt, sir. The NUB is expected to qualify in submarines within 12 months. This can be extended a few months if there are outside circumstances that delay qualification opportunities.

Qualification on a U.S. submarine is a formal process completed in phases. The first phase introduces all the major systems around the boat. This orientation phase is purposefully designed to ease the NUB through the culture shock of living inside a machine the Navy sends to submerge in the ocean for weeks on end. This introduces the NUB to their fellow crewman, one watch station at a time. This first impression will affect how difficult their qualification path is because the crew decides if you are to become a submariner or not. They must earn their confidence. They must prove that they can perform emergency actions without direction and with confidence during a ‘casualty,’ when something goes wrong.

Phase two of submarine qualification is the most difficult. It requires detailed knowledge of every system on the boat, from the nuclear powerplant, to ventilation, to electrical and hydraulic systems, to simple atmosphere scrubbing and gravity drains. The Non-Useful Body must memorize every system, be able to draw it from memory on command, and know the initial actions they must perform if a causality occurs to that system. Even if it’s not their assigned equipment, they must know how to prevent a failure from cascading into a major casualty that could be catastrophic for the boat.

Phase three of submarine qualification is the most physically demanding. This is the walkthrough phase. The NUB will walk through every level of every compartment one at a time with a qualified crewman. During this tour, they may be dressed in full protective gear like a Fire Fighting Equipment (FFE) asbestos bodysuit and wearing breathing protection. This physical discomfort compounded with an oral interview answering detailed system-specific operational questions simulates a small, but important amount of stress compared to what they would endure during a real casualty situation.

I’ve known a handful of submariners over the years, including a good friend who served on the USS Houston on her maiden cruise. Even those who serve on them all agree that it takes a VERY special kind of man to deal with the unique pressures of life on a submarine without going bugfuck nuts, an assertion with which I shall not quibble.

For anybody interested in reading further on the subject, I can’t recommend David Black’s Harry Gilmour series of novels highly enough. Of all the military fiction (and nonfiction, for that matter) I’ve read and reread over lo, these many years, the Gilmour books stand at the very top of the heap. Set on a British sub during WW2, all of them are meticulously researched and masterfully written: the characters are realistic, the relationships and conflicts between them all eminently believable; the action sequences are gripping and suspenseful; the plots and subplots are intricate and artfully developed. In fact, the only complaint I’ve ever had with the Gilmour novels is that there are only six of the danged things, which is nowhere near enough if you ask me.

Neat neat neat!

Posted on July 31, 2022August 1, 2022 by Mike

So a good friend put me onto this teewee channel I didn’t know about before, not having even turned the danged thing on in about three years or so: Tubi, which has a damned near miraculous cornucopia of documentaries chronicling the rise of the first-wave punk rock bands of the late 70s. Now, I’m finding it impossible to turn the dang thing off.

For those not previously into this sort of thing, that’s one of my all-time faves, a Brit punk outfit yclept the Damned, slashing ‘n’ burning their way through one of their classic tunes*, “New Rose.” Their Tubi doc is called The Damned—Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead, and it is filled to brimming with some mighty toothsome stuff.

There’s a crap-ton of these things available on the Tubi channel, featuring bands from the Ramones to the Dead Boys to Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers to…well, you name it, they got it, pretty much. Here’s a latter-day version of “Neat Neat Neat” from 2009. See if that bassist doesn’t look a mite familiar to ya’s.

Yeppers, that there would indeed be the god-like Lemmy Kilmister, who stepped in to tour and record with the Damned for a spell after OG (Original Guitarist) Brian James had left the band and Captain Sensible had moved over from bass to guitar. As much as I’ve always loved the Damned, from back in 77 up until right this very minute, I never knew that Lemmy had filled in with ’em as bassist, a tidbit I gleaned from the documentary.

An additional nugget of fascinating Damned lore: the original-original guitarist (well, kinda-sorta) was Chrissie Hynde, who would go on to great fame with a little combo called the Pretenders. According to Ms Hynde herself, she had three rehearsals with the embryonic punk icons, after which “they never got back in touch with me, I don’t know why.” Ahh, but I do: not to put TOO fine a point on it, but Chrissie never was anything much to brag about as a lead guitarist; after the band had gotten James into the slot—who IS a good lead git-fiddlist, and very much so—the lads had no real use for Miss Hynde anymore.

A pretty comprehensive record of the Damned’s long and storied career is perusable here; it reads like a who’s-who of OG punk rockers from the UK, and encompasses pretty much the whole history of first-wave punkdom across the Pond.

Another Tubi documentary I’m very much looking forward to viewing covers one Stiv Bators and his band, the forever-notorious Dead Boys. These guys are another of my perennial faves; they actually played the old Milestone Club in Charlotte in, oh, 79 or thereabouts, maybe? To my undying regret, I missed that show thanks to what felt to me at the time as if it might turn out to be a fatal case of the Green Apple Strut, dammit.

I later heard that Bators had indeed performed one of his signature stage moves that night: he would wind his way-long mic cable around his neck three or four times, toss the rest up over a beam or rafter or whatever else was handy and looked to be sturdy enough to bear his weight (which couldn’t have been much more than a buck-twenty or so, the skinny little git), then pull up the slack until he was literally hanging himself by the neck from the ceiling several feet off the stage. Which, with the creaky, decrepit old Milestone, was an act of profoundest faith, believe you me.

Tragically, Bators died in 1990 after being clobbered by an errant taxicab in the streets of Paris. Somewhere around here I should still have a photo I clipped from Creem or Circus or some other one of several 70s rock and roll mags I devoured as sustenance for the soul back in my wayward youth, featuring Bators with his pre-Dead Boys band: a Mark 1-Mod 0 Longhair, Boots, ‘n’ Spandex agglomeration hailing from Stiv’s own home-base of Cleveland, calling themselves Frankenstein. As a preview of what was coming, that pic was about as off as off can possibly get. My own sudden artistic swerve from the comparatively sedate metal/hard-rock byway and into the punk fast-lane was every bit as aggressive and extreme as Stiv’s was.

Here’s a blast of some typical Dead Boys mayhem, from 1977 at the hallowed CBGBs.

Those were the days, my friends.

* NOTE: I originally had an early live clip of “Neat Neat Neat” in this space, but decided to swap it out for “New Rose” since I definitely wanted to include the “Neat Neat Neat” with Lemmy in it, and didn’t see the point of having two versions of the same dang song up there.

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