Flotsam and/or Jetsam

Planned obsolescence?

Posted on June 18, 2023 by Mike

Veddy interesting. Veeeeddy interesting, indeed.

Could It Be That Anheuser-Busch Tanked Bud Light ON PURPOSE?
So many stories involving the Left these days come down to the core question: are they stupid or evil? Bud Light’s resounding nosedive after making the repulsive and obnoxious fake woman Dylan Mulvaney the face of the brand is the latest.

All this time it has been assumed that Anheuser-Busch was appallingly stupid, tanking its premier brand in a misguided quest for woke points. Now, however, it turns out that they may have been evil all along, wanting to destroy Bud Light because too many of the wrong kind of men drank it — that is, men who are comfortably masculine. A former Anheuser-Busch has now said that the whole thing was done on purpose.

This seems to be a frankly suicidal decision from a business standpoint, but it coincides with what Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s vice president of marketing, said on March 30, just before Mulvaney came out as Bud Light’s new spokesman. “I’m a businesswoman,” said Heinerscheid with noteworthy self-importance; “I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light.”

This would involve not just working to attract the wild-eyed ideologues, the deluded, and the mentally ill as new Bud Light drinkers, but to alienate the old customers as well. Heinerscheid explained: “We had this hangover, I mean Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach.” So was Mulvaney brought on not just to attract the woke to Bud Light, but specifically to drive away the ordinary guys who had been the backbone of the brand’s audience?

That was what the former employee said. “Why would they do this? What were they thinking?” he asked. “Especially now. This is the worst; it’s like the worst time yet, the best timing….Many of us are talking about that like they planned it in a way…like a strategic destruction of Bud Light.” Anheuser-Busch executives apparently decided it was time to cut loose those MAGA hat-wearing right-wing yahoos once and for all.

Echoing Heinerscheid, the former Anheuser-Busch employee added, “Bud Light has been failing for many years. We’ve talked about that for many years. The numbers of just, you know, little by little deteriorated. And it feels like they said, ‘let’s put this nail in the coffin.’” Bud Light would forever shake loose the frat boys, the flag wavers, the patriots. The woke scorekeepers such as the Soros-funded Human Rights Campaign would give Anheuser-Busch a lifetime gold star. The woke would make Bud Light their beer of choice to own the cons, even if they had to hold it as gingerly as Ted Lieu did.

So maybe Anheuser-Busch executives are not stupid; they’re just evil. They meant to destroy Bud Light all along, to rid themselves forever of their image of being a beer for ordinary Americans who might dare to resist the Left’s authoritarian agenda. Sure, they’d lose a few billion, but in the end, they’d have the approval of the woke, the compromised, and the insane, and that’s all that matters.

One thing you gotta give to the Left: always and forever, in any and all imaginable circumstances, they’re gonna have a plan. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a good or even a workable one; actually, history tells us that they very rarely are either of those things. Nevertheless, count on it: no matter what it may look like they’re doing or not doing, they’re working a plan. Every. Single. Time.

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A real leemer

Posted on June 17, 2023June 17, 2023 by Mike

LEEMER noun (FEAR, DREAD): Fighter-pilot slang for an unspecified quantity of ice-cold piss injected directly into the heart; describes the feeling a Naval carrier aviator might experience in reaction to, for example, a ramp strike, sudden in-flight engine failure (flameout), or a cold cat shot.

House damaged, person injured after aerobatic display collision

Two aircraft from the Swiss military aerobatic display team, Patrouille Suisse, collided on Thursday with falling debris hitting a house. One person on the ground was slightly injured in the accident.

The two F-5 Tiger planes were part of a formation practicing for a yodelling festival in canton Zug, central Switzerland.

The nose cone of one aircraft broke off and hit a house in the vicinity of the town of Baar, damaging the façade of the building and slightly injuring one person with shattered glass.

The braking parachute of the other aircraft deployed in mid-air but caused no damage and was later recovered.

All the seven aircraft involved in the practice session landed safely and no pilot was injured, according to the defence ministry.

Bayou Pete has video of the incident shot from ground-level, in which the midair and the loss of the nose cone from off the aircraft flying Number Three position can be easily, if not necessarily clearly, seen (older eyes may need to squint a little). Watching his miraculous recovery from a mishap which might very well have ended in real tragedy, all’s I can say is that Number Three’s pilot is one hell of a shit-hot stick—a truly badass fighter jock and one VERY cool customer to boot. For that, I salute you, sir.

The Northrop F5 Tiger, by the by, is a twin-engined supersonic air superiority/ground attack aircraft flown by the USAF and many of our ally nations beginning in the mid-60s, with 400 of them still in service as of 2021. They saw widespread use in the USAF, USMC, and USN during the Vietnam War, until changes in Air Force doctrine had them more or less dumped for larger, heavier aircraft such as the F4, the F100, and the F105 Thud. The Navy used them after the war at its renowned Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), mostly as either trainers or OPFOR adversary aircraft. They’re also widely seen in movies, albeit usually mislabeled as something else entirely for some bizarre reason—as everything from Phantoms to MiGs, which I always found hilarious.

The F5 is small, light, nimble, and more durable than one might expect at first glance, given those first two qualities. Although it was a pretty good aircraft, and any military pilot worth his wings will be quite familiar with it, the F5 somehow never quite achieved the same fame as the Phantom II, the F86 Saber, or latter-day siblings like the F14 Tomcat. The Tiger is a pretty, graceful-looking little thing for sure.

F5Tiger

That one’s in USAF livery, all kitted out with a full combat load of Mavericks and Sidewinders. Impressive, no?

Tucker on Twitter, again

Posted on June 15, 2023June 15, 2023 by Mike

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

Ep. 4 Wannabe Dictator pic.twitter.com/MDcs5g0gxB

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson)

June 15, 2023

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.

The cold, hard truth

Posted on June 15, 2023June 15, 2023 by Mike

Remember that 800 pound gorilla in the room I mentioned the other day in the Eyrie post? Well, in the way of all 800 pound gorillas, he’s still there, and isn’t going anywhere until he’s captured the undivided attention those pesky, implacable 800 pound gorillas always tend to seek…and, sooner or later, one way or another, get.

California Can Either Charge Its EV Fleet Or Keep The Lights On
Can California transition to a portfolio of 100% renewable energy sources and still generate enough electricity to meet the state’s future needs, including the addition of millions of electric cars on the road?

A: No. Next question. For that matter, neither can any other state. Turns out, there’s a reason why the human race abandoned “renewable” (read: inadequate to meet the demands of a modern industrial civilization) energy for more reliable, productive sources several centuries ago, see. UNEXPECTED!™

California is already incapable of generating enough electricity, importing 30% of its current electricity needs from other states. With respect to current generation sources, nearly 60% of California’s in-state electricity generation is produced by natural gas and nuclear power plants. Including conventional hydroelectric generation, which does not count as a renewable source for purposes of California’s policies, nearly two-thirds of the state’s current electricity comes from disfavored generation sources.

It is doubtful that California will be able to generate sufficient electricity to meet future energy needs using only the favored generation sources; and it is not even close.

Overall, total electricity generated will be 21.1% below the amount of electricity demanded — and this does not even account for the impacts from all the likely future mandates. Beyond the electric vehicle mandates evaluated above, officials are rapidly prohibiting connections for stoves, furnaces, hot water heaters, and dryers in new construction projects.

There are reasons to be exceptionally skeptical that California’s current energy policy environment is achievable. Either the policies will cause extreme energy shortages and jeopardize quality of life or the state’s political leaders will need to repeal the current suite of mandates.

“Reasons to be skeptical”? Oh, you just bet there are at that. But since, as every good “liberal” knows, electricity is something that happens when you flip a light switch—just as food is something that comes from the grocery store—there really isn’t a problem here at all. It’s just a damnable lie made up by those godawful MAGA H8RRRZZZ to oppress them, that’s all.

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Misc schtuff

Posted on June 15, 2023June 15, 2023 by Mike

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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Uncle Sam’s EXTREMELY Misguided Children

Posted on June 14, 2023June 14, 2023 by Mike

Via Divemedic, a vidya of the world’s mightiest, most feared, veritably-invincible military force at, umm, play.

The world is laughing at us… 👇🏼pic.twitter.com/N4EdBGVts8

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman)

June 13, 2023

Jeez-O-Pete. Bet his DI is mighty proud of this life-taker and heartbreaker. I only wish R Lee Ermey was still around to offer his take on this disgraceful shit-stain upon a once-proud uniform. Then again, I think it’s safe to say we already know what his opinion would be.

How to make a shithole

Posted on June 13, 2023June 14, 2023 by Mike

Our brother-from-another-mother Big Country posts a heartwarming tale.

SO I was up at the U-Haul and this young-ish couple were in there all happy and talking about how they moved here just today…the guy behind the counter was all being nice and whatever…me being the bastard curmudgeon I’ve become, I asked where thy moved from…

“Rhode Island!” said the chirpy tatted-up girl…(maybe she was 22, 23 at most…) not bad looking but a lot of ‘warning tattoos’, i.e. dreamcatcher on her neck, the word ‘breathe’ on the inside of one wrist…her significant other, Mister “I could smell the soy from six feet away?” Yeah, his tats? Flowers. Lil daisies on the back of his elbows…bad hair, shitty handlestache…

Uh… yeeeah

I looked at ’em both, and growled “Welcome to Florida! Don’t you fucking dare vote like you did back home.” The guy behind the counter looked at me, and looked at them and nodded and said “Yep…don’t screw up our state like you did yours!”

On that I turned and walked out…let them chew on that bit of advice.

But folks like that are like an infectious virus.

Moving in from a fucked up state, to OUR state, and then voting in the same types of assholes who made their state of origin all fucked up, which, while NOT intentionally planning on fucking it all up again, but doing so, and then wondering “How did this happen?” Self awareness purely doesn’t exist in the hive-mind of a liberal I swear.

Their look of shock was great.

Heh. I just bet it was at that, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer brace of assholes. Wish I’d been there to see it; I call ‘em locusts, myself, which I think is a very apt and fitting name for ‘em.

I’ve read in several different places over the past cpl-three years or so that, according to the stats, that’s actually not so much the case, though—that the vast majority of those fleeing the blighted, pestilential urban hellholes are NOT the idiot libs who did so much to help make them what they are, but are in actual fact mostly RightwingNaziDeathBeasts who have, after many years of suffering through the gradual, pre-planned decline, finally gotten a bellyful of it and decided to uproot and make good their escape. Never an easy decision to make, especially for someone who has lived in such an area his whole life, with deep family roots in what we unreconstructed Southrons used to call the old home-place.

Having lived for many years in one such example—CLT, which admittedly has always leaned pretty sharply Left, as has the entire state; over my entire lifetime, I can remember but one nominally “Republican” mayor, the execrable stealth-liberal Pat McRory—I dunno whether I buy the aforementioned statistics or not; I gotta say, I’m skeptical. But who knows, it could be so; with the widening Right-Left divide becoming more and more hardened and virulent over the past several years, it may very well be. It’d be nice if it was, that’s for definite sure.

The dead giveaway that you’re looking at a locust infestation as you drive around any given neighborhood? One of those obnoxiously self-righteous “In this house, we believe…” signs posted in the front yard. Know that, and adjust your behavior towards the occupants accordingly.

Big-city living is not ever going to be everyone’s cup of tea; for years, it was certainly mine, although nowadays I wouldn’t live in the city, any city, if you paid me by the hour. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that it has to be a horrible, unbearable nightmare, either. For many, many years, American cities were envied around the world as desirable, worthwhile places to live and work—to ENJOY living, rather than merely existing. As with so many other things, the question must be: Who did this to us, and why on Earth did we ever allow it to happen?

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Starvation diet

Posted on June 13, 2023June 13, 2023 by Mike

Worried about being overweight? Need to lose a few pounds? Fret not; with an assist from a capricious and pissed-off Mother Nature, our benevolent One World Goobermint has got ya covered.

The Horseman Are Riding
We finally got a little much needed rain on Sunday, it wasn’t a ton, maybe half an inch, but it was desperately needed. Most of the crops around here are at the early growing stages when a lack of rain can mean poor yields come harvest time and all of the hay fields that were cut a few weeks ago have been baking in the near drought conditions, so the second cutting of hay might be crap. More rain is expected today and maybe Thursday.

All in all, it wasn’t a huge deal but another week like that would have been bad.

It reminded me of how fragile the food supply, seemingly limitless and reliable on the surface, truly is and especially how dangerous tinkering with that food supply can be.

The world is a big place with lots of room for people but the number of people in the world has been growing rapidly and in some regions is accelerating while other regions have seen fertility in a free-fall.

In 1987 when I was an underclassman in high school the world had around 5 billion people but just a few years ago in 2019 it had grown by more than 50%. Last November the UN “celebrated” the global population hitting a new milestone of 8 billion people. 8,000,000,000 people is a lot and the picture they chose was appropriate.

The pic of which Arthur speaks, which he helpfully includes in his post, is extremely heavy on the black and brown skin-tones, as one would expect.

In just 12 years the global population increased by a billion people, or an additional 83 million mouths to feed every year. That is a net increase the equivalent of the entire population of Germany every year, and the new people are not Germans. Only 19 nations in the world have that many people, so we are adding not just the equivalent of a new nation of people every year but really it is more like several nations worth of people annually. As I am sure most of us realize, these new nations are not full of successful, high IQ people….

In a nutshell?

We have to celebrate diversity by looting first world White and East Asian nations who have their population under control to subsidize the out of control fecundity of Africans, Middle Easterners and South Asians.

It would seem obvious that adding a couple of new nations worth of people every year, and mostly from the dumbest people in the world, would mean that food security is a big deal and we should be concerned about finding ways to feed these people. That is what you would think…

Nah, not for shitlibs, whose motto, in all times and circumstances, might as well be have no fear, Big Daddy Gubmint will provide! Closer to the truth of the matter is something our old friend Kim DuToit always says: Africa wins again!

Slaughtering 200,000 cows in Ireland to fight “climate change” at the same time that the world is adding a net nearly 100 million people every year makes sense to no one but it is just the latest assault on food production in Europe. It may not be necessary though. The general news in the food world isn’t great and is actually pretty concerning…..

Kansas Wheat Harvest Will Be The Smallest Since 1957 And U.S. Corn Is Being Absolutely Devastated By Drought

That isn’t a typo, back in 1957 the country had far fewer people and farming was still mostly done by smaller family farms.

We usually get a dry stretch in the Corn Belt but it comes later after the corn is pretty tall and already working on ears. When it hits this early it will stunt corn growth when it is most vulnerable. Corn goes into lots of food but where it really makes a difference is in livestock feed. Cattle, hogs, chickens all mostly eat a corn based diet. You can feed them other stuff, like grass and hay for cattle, but it takes much longer to get the animals to market weight.

In sum, then, we’re doing basically all of the things we shouldn’t be doing, and none of the things we should be. Arthur’s bottom-line closer is well worth clicking over to read, chilling though it all is.

Helping the poor potatoes become pizzas

Posted on June 12, 2023 by Mike

Two good un’s from Margolis’s Meme-manic Monday post.

HelpingThem

What can one say but: heh. Should you require an explainer, here t’is.

PotatoPizzaGender

Plenty more fun schtuff at the link, y’all.

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Crap In A Barrel

Posted on June 12, 2023 by Mike

Going down hard.

We take no pleasure in reporting that @CrackerBarrel has fallen.

A once family friendly establishment has caved to the mob. pic.twitter.com/IM0p1NT20S

— Texas Family Project (@FamilyProjectTX)

June 8, 2023

Meh, no great loss as far as I’m concerned, their food always sucked anyway. The best part? This.

It may not just be ESG pressure, there is every possibility that Cracker Barrel hired an Ivy League MBA to work some magic on its brand image, just like Bud Light did.

Whatever the case, Cracker Barrel stock is now in free fall.

At the beginning of June Pride Month, Cracker Barrel stock (CBRL) was trading at $102 per share. It is now down to $91 per share, losing $4 per share on Friday alone.

Like Target and Anheuser Busch, Cracker Barrel is committing stock market seppuku. In barely a week (during which the stock market rose) Cracker Barrel lost 11% of its value.

Oh well, even if heartland American stop going to Cracker Barrel, maybe those lost customers can be replaced by coastal leftists who are all wrapped up in sexual identities. So long as Cracker Barrel pivots to serving sustainable, organic, locally sourced, GMO-free fare in hip, urban settings, there should be no problem replacing the customer base that is being run off.

May those Wokester CEOs at Crap In A Barrel have joy of their choice.

Punisher, punished

Posted on June 12, 2023June 12, 2023 by Mike

I seem to recollect mentioning here a time or three that the Left’s hatred for us is so deep, so frenzied, so caustically desperate that there really is nothing they can leave alone. We HAVE talked about that here before, right?

WELL. About all that.

A year ago progressive news outlets were calling the idea of the culture war a “right-wing conspiracy theory” that had no basis in reality. Yet, the injection of far-left politics into entertainment media had already started years previous, with noticeable propaganda efforts in movies, streaming television, children’s shows and books, even commercial advertising was replete with progressive ideological imagery by 2016 onward.

The goal is relatively obvious – To erase competing ideals and viewpoints while saturating the market with only one political vision; a woke vision. It’s called social engineering, and anyone who claims this is not happening in the US today is gaslighting.

Strangely, the American comic book industry has become a major battleground in the culture war, with heroic symbols being increasingly erased or hijacked as vehicles for woke talking points. A vast array of comic book characters are now race-swapped, converted to LGBT or they have had their histories rewritten to make them more “acceptable for modern audiences.” At the same time, they promote everything from BLM, to climate change propaganda, to gender identity politics and anti-gun messaging.

Why would leftists target something as frivolous as comic book heroes? Because pop-culture is first and foremost a playground where children grow up, and by rewriting heroes as social justice crusaders and communists they hope to indoctrinate the next generation.

The Punisher character (Frank Castle), originally created by writer Gerry Conway in 1974 with artists Ross Andru and John Romita, was a product of a chaotic era; a reaction to the rise of war, stagflation, instability and exploding crime rates in the US. The Punisher’s story is a tragedy of a returning military veteran whose family is killed during what seems to be a gangland hit. With federal agencies doing little to arrest the perpetrators, Castle takes matters into his own hands and begins systematically assassinating the criminals.

The Punisher as an icon has been highly popular among conservatives, military veterans and law enforcement officers in recent years. The trademark skull symbol can be found everywhere, with patches, gear and flags sporting the image, often as a representation of citizens taking matters into their own hands. The symbol was also seen at the January 6th protests.

This has made leftists at Marvel Comics livid. They first attempted to make fundamental changes to the character, including a redesign of his popular skull symbol, as well as taking away his guns and giving him swords in 2021. Instead of fighting against criminal organizations, Frank Castle joins with one, violating his fundamental code of ethics.

This month, though, Marvel officially declared the Punisher persona non grata, eliminating the character as readers know him. Did he go out in a blaze of glory? No, in typical woke fashion Frank Castle is captured by progressive heroes, chained up and forced to go through a struggle session in which he is admonished as a murderer and a terrorist. Marvel even brings the Punisher’s wife back from the dead, only so that she can divorce him and take his money and property, and then inform him that his lifelong crusade against the criminal underworld was all for nothing.

Marvel writers, including original Punisher creator Gerry Conway, specifically cite the popularity of the character among conservatives as the reason for his virtual elimination. As Newsweek noted, the Punisher was “problematic” for Marvel because conservatives liked him too much. He represents the every-man: He has no superpowers, he’s not a billionaire like Batman, but he still fights evil with an immovable will and a lot of guns.

Emphasis mine, because Jesus tapdancin’ CHRIST. I mean, seriously, folks: kill off a popular, profitable franchise entire simply because people you hate are among those who enjoy it? Sheesh. Mere “crazy” doesn’t even begin to cover this; it’s far too gentle a word to adequately describe it. Confirming yet again that these “people” truly are just totally, hopelessly, irremediably bugfuck nuts.

(Via Wes Renegade)

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No-so-famous last words

Posted on June 10, 2023June 10, 2023 by Mike

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:

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.

THEY’RE HEEEEERE!

Posted on June 10, 2023June 10, 2023 by Mike

I for one welcome our new alien overlords.

I’m not playing around with you guys, this is legit alien sci-fi movie freaky nightmare stuff right here. Watch this news report:

pic.twitter.com/oKffnJ7ZWV

— Davy Jones (@itsNTBmedia)

June 8, 2023

Does that family look disturbed or delusional to you? Did it look or sound like they were playing a prank? Did you hear how shook the cops were??

Just because they don’t look delusional doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t, of course, but who knows. In any event, BCE quickly spotted the silver lining.

Bad News: Apparently The Aliens/Martians/Whathaveyou have landed in Las Vegas. Juuuuuust a bit outside the strip.

Good News: They’re eating niggers and illegals, pissing gasoline, and headed East.

<Drum Riff>

Sorry…. had to do it.

Heh. Well, bring it on then, ET, and welcome home to you and all your star-hopping friends. Maps to the southern US border, major urban ghetto areas, and the nearest scheduled pAntiFa/BLM riot will be made available to you free of charge at any truck stop or mom & pop filling station nationwide. Be sure to try our Drag Queen Groomer AYCE Special listed on the menu; deep-fried, baked, or broiled, they’re delicious, and oh so good for you!

Thrilla in Manila

Posted on June 5, 2023June 5, 2023 by Mike

Inside dope on one of the greatest, most compellingly brutal fights of all time.

Did Muhammad Ali ever give any compliments to his opponents?
Ali on Joe Frazier, the morning after their brutal third fight – the Thrilla in Manila, which brought down the curtain on a legendary trilogy

“I heard somethin’ once. When somebody asked a marathon runner what goes through his mind in the last mile or two, he said that you ask yourself, ‘Why am I doin’ this?’ You get so tired. It takes so much out of you mentally. It changes you. It makes you go a little insane. I was thinkin’ that at the end. Why am I doin’ this? What am I doin’ in here against this beast of a man? It’s so painful. I must be crazy. I always bring out the best in the men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.”

Well, good for both of ‘em, then. Next question:

Did Muhammad Ali really consider himself the greatest?
Yes…with reason. He took the title from arguably the second greatest heavyweight ever, won it a second time against an all time top ten heavyweight champion and then defend(ed) the title in the golden era of the heavyweight.

He beat Sonny Liston…twice

He beat Joe Frazier…twice

He beat Ken Norton…twice

He beat Floyd Patterson…twice

He beat George Foreman

He beat Ernie Shavers

He beat Ron Lyle

He best Jimmy Young

He beat Jimmy Ellis

He beat Jimmy Quarry

He beat Bob Foster, the best light heavyweight of his day.

He beat Cleveland Williams, Zora Folley, Henry Cooper, Buster Mathis…he beat the great, he beat the damn near great, and he beat the very, very good.

He beat five world heavyweight champions (Liston, Patterson, Frazier, Foreman, and Norton) and he beat an undisputed light heavyweight champion (Bob Foster).

It was the Golden Era of the Heavyweights and he was King of the Hill.

Damn right he thought he was the best…so did they!!!

Just about any serious boxing fan would agree that if Ali wasn’t, as he loved to boast, “the greatess of all times,” then he was certainly well in the running. His balance, agility, and footwork; his ability to take punch after punch and still keep coming at you; the awesome power behind his own punches; his ability to intelligently strategize, to get inside the head of his opponents and manipulate their emotions to their own great detriment; there’s really never been anyone quite like him, with the arguable exception of Iron Mike Tyson—who, in addition to being an absolutely vicious, relentless opponent, was also a marvelously-talented boxer in his own right.

Ali also had a near-uncanny ability to get the spotlight focused tightly on him and keep it there, a star-quality that simply would not be denied, and is nowhere to be found in professional boxing today.

From the TiM Wiki entry:

Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier lll, billed as the “Thrilla in Manila”, was the third and final boxing match between WBA and WBC heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, and Joe Frazier, for the heavyweight championship of the world. The bout was conceded after fourteen rounds on October 1, 1975, at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines, located in Metro Manila. The venue was temporarily renamed as the “Philippine Coliseum” for this match. Ali won by corner retirement (RTD) after Frazier’s chief second, Eddie Futch, asked the referee to stop the fight after the 14th round. The contest’s name is derived from Ali’s rhyming boast that the fight would be “a killa and a thrilla and a chilla, when I get that gorilla in Manila.”

The bout is almost universally regarded as one of the best and most brutal fights in boxing history, and was the culmination of a three-bout rivalry between the two fighters that Ali won, 2–1. Some sources estimate the fight was watched by 1 billion viewers, including 100 million viewers watching the fight on closed-circuit theatre television, and 500,000 pay-per-view buys on HBO home cable television.

The first bout between Frazier and Ali–– promoted as the “Fight of the Century”–– took place on March 8, 1971, in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Frazier was the undefeated champion and won by unanimous decision over the previously undefeated former champion Ali, who had been stripped of his titles for refusing to enter the draft for the Vietnam War.

Their showdown was a fast-paced, 15-round bout, with Frazier scoring the fight’s (and the trilogy’s) only knockdown, at the beginning of the final round.

When the rivals met in a January 1974 rematch, neither was champion; Frazier had suffered a stunning second-round knockout by George Foreman a year earlier,

Yeah, I just bet it was stunning at that. Anytime George Foreman landed one of those almighty bricks of his upside an opponent’s poor noggin, “stunning” would definitely have been the mot juste to describe the horrific experience. Onwards.

and Ali had two controversial split bouts with Ken Norton. In a promotional appearance before the second fight, the two had scuffled in an ABC studio during an interview segment with Howard Cosell.

There were controversial aspects to the fight. In the second round, Ali struck Frazier with a hard right hand, which backed him up. Referee Tony Perez stepped between the fighters, signifying the end of the round, even though there were about 25 seconds left. In so doing, he gave Frazier time to regain his bearings and continue fighting. Perez also failed to contain Ali’s tactic of illegally holding and pulling down his opponent’s neck in the clinches, which helped Ali to smother Frazier, and gain the 12-round decision. This became a major issue in selecting the referee for the Manila bout.

Ahh, those wonderful old verbal slugfests between Ali and Cosell—truly classic stuff, they were, and wildly entertaining, as Ali himself always was, both inside the squared circle and out of it.

When Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali were in a room together the two mega personalities produced countless magical television moments. The men constantly teased one another and often pretended to spar while wearing suits and ties, as The New York Times notes.

In one memorable moment, Ali threatened to pull off Cosell’s toupee. Another time, Ali was quoted as saying “Every time you open your mouth, you should be arrested for air pollution” to which Cosell responded “You would still be in impoverished anonymity in this country if I hadn’t made you.”

Still another time, Ali pretended to threaten Cosell. The sportscaster responded teasingly “Don’t touch me. I’ll beat your brains out,” via USA Today. The verbal sparring delighted audiences and boosted TV ratings. And, HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant described their back and forth as symbiotic. He said the boxer wasn’t threatened by Cosell and that Cosell realized how Ali was a one-of-a-kind athlete.

Howard Cosell’s daughter Jill told USA Today that her father never imagined the back and forth between the two men would become a sort of comic routine. She described Ali as funny, charming, handsome, and with a “big mouth.” She said Ali trusted her dad and that over the years their relationship developed into friendship.

While good-natured back and forth was so much of the men’s public persona, below the surface grew a deeper bond. After Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, Cosell acknowledged the change while many others resisted. Cosell also defended Ali from critics when Ali refused to be inducted into the military over religious beliefs, via USA Today.

Cosell died in 1995 at the age of 77. His daughter Jill says Ali sat next to her at her father’s service with tears streaming down his face during the eulogy. And then, in June of 2016, Muhammad Ali died. The three-time heavyweight champion is considered by many to be one of the greatest boxers to ever enter the ring.

Another magical Ali moment came in 1996, when The Greatest sat down with Ed Bradley to be interviewed for 60 Minutes, a moment I well remember seeing when it originally aired.

Muhammad Ali’s tragic decline was already well underway by the time of the Bradley interview, as was heartbreakingly obvious in the unexpurgated broadcast version I watched back in ’96. When I found this the other day, it was the first time I’d seen it since then, but over lo, these many, many years I never have forgotten it. If you’ve never before seen the Thrilla in Manilla, the entire 14-round fight (an hour and twelve minutes) is available on YouTube. For any fan of the Sweet Science, it’s a must-see.

1

TRUE culprit found

Posted on June 3, 2023June 3, 2023 by Mike

Well, this would certainly explain a few things, wouldn’t it?

Report: Sandbag That Tripped Biden On Stage Also Participated In Jan 6 Capitol Riot
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — The motive behind a sandbag’s sudden attack on President Joe Biden became more clear today, as sources within the federal government have produced photos showing the sandbag also participated in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

“This sandbag has been a dangerous entity for some time,” said one source under the condition of anonymity. “After reviewing video footage from the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, we discovered the sandbag among the other Trump-supporting domestic terrorists. The sandbag has evaded justice since that day, giving it the opportunity to trip President Biden at the Air Force commencement ceremony.”

As officials continued to dig into the sandbag’s past, further red flags were raised. “We have also found a lengthy manifesto written by the sandbag,” the source said. “We will not be releasing the manifesto to the public due to the potential damage it could cause to our democracy, but it’s really bad. Just trust us, we’re the government.”

Though unharmed in the tripping incident, President Biden has privately vowed to bring the full weight of the federal government behind his crusade to hunt down other sandbags. Additional reports seem to have indicated the sand inside the bag was white, raising concerns about ties to white supremacist organizations.

There’s hard photographic proof included with the linked article, which plainly has not been Photoshopped or otherwise altered in any way, shape, or form. Unsurprisingly, the sandbag also had close ties with Putin and RUSSIARUSSIARUSSIA. Can exposure of even deeper links to Trump and the demonic MAGA agenda be long in coming?

2

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