Flotsam and/or Jetsam

RIP Randy Weaver

Posted on May 12, 2022May 12, 2022 by Mike

One of the very worst of innumerable “FBI run amok” stories.

Randy Weaver has passed away. Three decades ago, he was entrapped by an ATF agent. Federal agents subsequently killed his son and wife. The Justice Department denied that anyone’s rights were violated but still paid a multi-million dollar settlement for the Weaver family’s wrongful death lawsuit. Federal abuses at Ruby Ridge, the subsequent FBI coverup, and the outrageous arguments that federal lawyers made in court to protect the FBI sniper helped awaken legions of Americans to the danger of boundless federal power.

On August 22, 1992, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi killed Vicki Weaver as she stood in the door of a cabin at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, holding her baby. The FBI initially claimed that killing Mrs. Weaver was justified and then later covered up key details and claimed it was accidental. FBI chief Louis Freeh pretended his agents had done nothing seriously wrong. After an Idaho prosecutor indicted Horiuchi for manslaughter, the Clinton administration Justice Department swayed a federal court to dismiss the case based on the “supremacy clause” of the Constitution. But the Founding Fathers never intended for “federal supremacy” to nullify all of the Bill of Rights. Federal judge captured the soul of the case in a dissent that warned of the new James Bond “007 standard for the use of deadly force” against American citizens. Kozinski summarized the case: “A group of FBI agents formulated rules of engagement that permitted their colleagues to hide in the bushes and gun down men who posed no immediate threat. Such wartime rules are patently unconstitutional for a police action.”

Though the FBI insisted its agents had behaved impeccably, the feds paid a $3 million wrongful death settlement to the Weaver family. A top FBI official was sent to prison for destroying key evidence in the case.

The FBI has become more powerful and more dangerous since Ruby Ridge.

It damned sure has at that, which is an abomination before God.

I’ve told the story here of meeting and hanging out with Weaver at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot one year. He was friendly and personable enough, although it would be stretching things a good bit to say he was gregarious. In the middle of an enraptured group of shooters who considered him to be something of a martyr/hero combination and were hanging on his every word, Weaver seemed to know he was among friends at KCR. But he remained slightly guarded nonetheless.

I was struck by how easy it was to see the anguish in the poor man’s eyes over having federal thugs murder his entire family right before his very eyes, for no good reason at all. Weaver’s pain was etched deeply in him like a burning brand, a wound still as fresh and raw as if his personal nightmare at the hands of an irredeemably evil government had taken place only the day before, rather than several years.

Rest now, Randy. No flesh and blood man could see the things you’ve seen and walk away with soul and spirit unscarred. May the pain and horror be far removed from you, now and forevermore.

Don’t look now

Posted on May 12, 2022May 12, 2022 by Mike

Looks like somebody didn’t get the “Saddam had NO WMDs” memo.

Gulf War Syndrome mystery SOLVED: US scientists blame the condition on SARIN gas released into the air when Iraq’s chemical weapons cache was bombed

Quarter of veterans who served in Gulf War suffering unexplained symptoms

Scientists left flummoxed by the cause fatigue, memory problems and body pain

But now US study has found the usually fatal nerve gas sarin is to blame

UNPOSSIBLE, I SAY!!! I have been assured by All The Best People that Saddam had no WMDs, never did have them, and had no interest whatsoever in acquiring any. The whole thing was just a lie dreamed up by Chimperor Shrub II to provide an excuse for launching his Forever War against an entirely blameless nation for the sole reason that the damned drunken fool believed that Saddam was plotting to assassinate Daddy Shrub. All those truckloads of WMDs that were seen filing into Syria for safekeeping just before Operation Desert Shrub opened had no WMDs in them, either.

In fact, there’s NO SUCH THING AS WMDs, period. Even if there were, Moslem shitrapies in the Middle East would be the last place you’d be likely to find them, Pisslam being the Religion Of Peace™ and all that. Hey, did you know that the word “Islam” actually means “Peace” when translated into English? Because it does. I bet you didn’t know that at all, did ya, H8R? Well, you do now.

Dennis Hopper, American icon

Posted on May 11, 2022May 11, 2022 by Mike

Just so’s you know, I freely admit that I’m running this as an excuse to repost this most awesome Nicholson/Hopper duet from Easy Rider at the end.

I’ve always loved Dennis Hopper and found him to be a kindred spirit. He embodies American consciousness without a shred of sentimentality. We see in him a mixture of rebelliousness, sorrow, loss, and even grace. But more than anything, we see American restlessness. Although he is most known for his films, both as a director and actor, Hopper’s talent was also visible in his photography. After his career had a bit of a downturn in the 1960s, Hopper’s then-wife, Brooke Hayward, gave him a Nikon camera for his 25th birthday.

Hopper’s photography oeuvre covers only the years 1961-1967, which is short chronologically speaking, but the creations that came out of restlessness transcend time. Hopper himself didn’t want to have anything to do with the pictures and put them away in a vault. “I was trying to forget…,” he said, “the photographs represented failure to me. A painful parting from [daughter] Marin and Brooke, my art collection, the house that I lived in and the life that I had known for those eight years.” Still, the photographs continue to live as artifacts of America’s past, separated from Hopper, the man, but bound to Hopper, the artist. His own view of their existence and status as photographs is almost irrelevant because of our gaze into the world he has recorded.

Hopper’s photographs, particularly in this collection, In Dreams, are a window into the soul of America during the 1960s. We see street scenes of Los Angeles: people frozen in time, sitting, standing up, looking into the distance of their own lives, or just staring at the passing dog. We see a close up of hands writing; jazz musicians in a smokey club; streets in rearview mirrors offering both a reality and an illusion of our strange world; George Segal and Sandy Dennis in 1965, a year before the release of Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Edward Albee’s 1962 play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” standing among the broken nude statues, embodying innocence not unlike their characters, Nick and Honey, in Nichols’ film.

We see Brooke Hayward in a grocery store, pushing a cart somewhat sadly, lost in her secret thoughts; a couple in a kissing booth; a girl in a rearview mirror driving to God knows where (a job? Seeing a friend? Or is she running away?); a cocktail party where a kiss between a man and woman appears seemingly from nowhere (Are they strangers? Friends? Lovers?).

We see the filming of Henry Hathaway’s 1965 western, “The Sons of Katie Elder.” Hopper does not discriminate and sees everyone as a human being, not in their respective societal or film roles. Hathaway and John Wayne are in the middle of a scene with Wayne pointing at something out of frame. There is a calmness, steadiness, and stability, but also the bubbling of creativity. I am drawn to these images precisely because they point to a time and a place when even the possibility of steadiness and masculinity was present in the culture. Things are getting done and life keeps moving forward.

In the collection, there are even self-portraits, in which we see Hopper’s need to be seen, a rebellious streak, and over the top self-importance. But there is also a certain sensitivity that only comes from someone who has the soul of an artist. They are the most dreamy of all. Is this how Hopper saw himself at the time? He is hovering like a ghost of America past and present.

On one occasion, Hopper’s daughter Marin, reflected: “My father, Dennis Hopper, believed that being on the road in search of something was very American. You had to keep moving forward no matter what. Ride into town, gunfight at high noon, then off into the sunset.” Hopper represented—and even in his death, represents—not simply the one American dream, whatever it may have been or whatever shred of it is present now. Rather, he represents American dreams—lives lived on the photographic paper, on the celluloid, and in the American desert of desires.

Okay, I take it back; the article is good enough to serve as its own justification, no excuses required for running it. Same-same with the vid, actually.

Update! So the whole Hopper trip got me to rooting around here and there, which eventually landed me on this incredible site covering all things Easy Rider. Captain America and Billy’s route to Mardi Gras is mapped out, literally; the entire movie is posted; there are then-and-now pics of some of the locations where scenes from the movie were shot, among other way-cool stuff. No foolin’, gang, this is one hella-awesome website for any Easy Rider fan.

Monstrous trains

Posted on May 11, 2022May 11, 2022 by Mike

An aspect of the supply chain collapse most of us haven’t given a lot of thought to, if any.

Imagine a train 16,400 feet in length weighing 17,500 tons: That is three miles, 560 feet and 35 million pounds. One train. And it is hauling hazmat, tanks of say, chlorine gas, or anhydrous ammonia. Just one tank car alone weighs 131 tons, that is 262,000 pounds. To give an example from history, 262,000 pounds of chlorine gas is approximately two-thirds of what the German army used during the trench warfare of all of WWI. One tank car alone.

“And then we pick up more enroute! My conductor is three miles away while I reverse this train into an active rail yard! Crossings don’t matter, and communities? Are you kidding? No sane country would move materials like this. These trains exceed the coupler and drawbar limits of the very cars themselves. The risks the Class I carriers are taking is a race to disaster. It is absolutely dreadful and grotesque.

Another Precision Scheduled Railroading factor in supply chain failure: Even when the majority of these PSR trains make it, without dramatic ends, they rarely get across the road during a crew members hours of service (HOS) time limit, which is 12 hours. Several factors:

“The rail infrastructure, in particular rail yards and sidings, were designed and built during the great Industrial Age. They did a lot of things right: they overbuilt bridges, for one. But it is not a failure of imagination that they could not foresee, from a sane perspective, that someday the bosses would want to normalize 15,000-foot trains.

“Yards and sidings do not accommodate this scale. It is a clash of function and design. So, imagine this: A 15,800-foot train with distributed power locomotives placed in the middle and at the rear of a train, comes to work a station with 4,500-foot tracks and needs to pick up and set out cars in the middle and rear of the train. This will not be lickety-split.

Plenty more at the link, all of it both fascinating and terrifying at once. Bayou Pete follows up:

All I can say is, my hat’s off to anyone who takes on a job like that. The stress must be beyond most people’s imagination. Also, if something goes badly wrong and the train is involved in a major derailment or collision, the crew’s safety is probably anything but guaranteed. The inertia built up by such weights, at such speeds, makes it impossible to slow down or stop in any meaningfully short distance. The crew are going to have to jump for their lives (at speeds almost guaranteed to cause serious injury or death) or ride it all the way to impact, in the desperate hope they won’t be smeared all over the wreckage like strawberry jam. That’s not much of a choice.

When I think of the long, long trains of tank cars and chemical cars that I see rumbling through our little town every single day, and realize that even one of those cars carries enough potentially lethal cargo to kill every person within city limits in a matter of minutes…it puts a whole new perspective on rail safety.

Don’t it, though. Don’t it just. Over the years I’ve known a cpl-three guys who worked as train engineers, brakemen, even one out in Arizona who was a conductor, if I remember right, for Amtrak. My cousin Steve, who has had a huge fascination with trains his whole life and is locally famous for his incredible collection of HO-scale model railroad builds, used to say to me: “I really wanted to work for the railroad, until I found out the job would involve having to go out and decouple those big steel boxcars during a lightning storm. That’s when I lost all interest in it.” As it happens, that’s also when I realized how happy I was that I’d never had any interest in it to start with.

Another refugee

Posted on May 11, 2022May 11, 2022 by Mike

Codrea takes the Big Leap away from GoogSpot and over to a hosting service where, presumably, he won’t be fucked with. Congrats, Larry, and good on ya. Bookmarks and Blogrolle duly updated anon.

Government internet: now a Thing!

Posted on May 9, 2022May 9, 2022 by Mike

Oh goodie gumdrops, looks like we just found ourselves a brand new Constitutional right!

High-speed internet is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.

But today, too many families simply can’t afford it.

That’s why in November, when we passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we created something called the Affordable Connectivity Program. Here’s how it works.

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 9, 2022

The Obamanet, like its predecessor Obamacare, will be more efficient, lots cheaper (FREE!!!), more reliable, much faster, and WAY more entertaining, educational, and just plain FUN!!! Sundance assures us ALL IS WELL.

There is nothing nefarious about the U.S. surveillance state wanting to make surveillance more efficient. Nothing nefarious at all.

Do not be discouraged by those extremist voices outlining the benefits to government that are provided by a wider, more inclusive, national broadband internet system; that connects to a more efficient 5G internet system; that permits you to experience a new world of telecommunications benefits tailored to your individual needs.

The new network of all things interconnected will make life far more convenient, perhaps allowing you to eliminate the worry of finding gasoline in rural areas when it becomes scarce. Our new national networks will help ease your mind as the internet proximity services work seamlessly with your portable transponder unit (cell phone) to facilitate your needs.

The convenience of finding stuff you need; intersecting with voting and data-connections with your social media network; helping the government track you; all of it. The opportunities are endless my friends. Smiles, everyone, smiles.

You’d think they would be saying thank you. Man, I just can’t wait to get my hands on my new 56k/600 baud modem from dear old Uncle Sam! It’s FREE, you know!

Electric bricks

Posted on May 8, 2022May 8, 2022 by Mike

We used to have a fine old term for this that got used quite a bit back in the 70s: planned obsolescence.

None of these are old cars. In fact, the oldest Spark is younger than the average non-electric car currently in service as a daily driver, which is about twelve years old. Most of these with many more years of useful service left, because they don’t have battery packs that cost more than the car is worth (by then) to replace.

Which is a built-in problem for all electric cars. Some may recall the case of the irate Finnish man who TNT’d his not-very-old Tesla Model S when he found out that replacing its dead battery pack would cost him on the order of $20,000.

But at least a replacement battery was still available.

Without that, you’ve got nothing – no matter how much you’re willing to pay for it. And unlike non-electric cars, there is very little you can do about it – other than eat the loss and move on to the next one. This is because an EV’s dead battery pack is not like a non-electric car’s failed transmission or engine – or even both, together. In the case of the latter, it is almost always possible to swap in a used or remanufactured/rebuilt transmission or engine – and drive on. It is not possible with electric cars for which there aren’t any replacements available, new or used.

And even if the original manufacturer no longer makes new replacement engines/transmissions for a given IC car, these can usually both be rebuilt at a price that’s worth the doing. Electric car battery packs, once dead, are throw-aways – just like the dead battery that no longer powers your sail fawn. At which point, you throw away the sail fawn.

The electric car, too.

The difference being you probably paid a lot more for the electric car.

Interestingly, there has been little-to-no coverage in the general or even the automotive press about this business. It’s interesting – because you can imagine the uproar that would arise if any other barely ten-year-old car was no longer supported by its manufacturer – and had a built-in design feature that assured it would be rendered useless years before it reached the age of the average non-electric car currently in service.

Of course, the reason for the absence of such coverage is because it might call attention to the shorter useful lifespan of electric cars, due to the shorter useful life of their battery packs relative to the useful life of an IC car’s engine or transmission. These are expected to last at least 12-15 years – and most last longer. If they fail sooner, the car – and its maker – gets a well-deserved reputation for shoddiness and most people will avoid buying a car made by that maker.

It is discharge-recharge cycling that ages a battery. Especially “fast” charging. You can limit the damage by not “fast” charging – and not discharging – the EV battery. But then the EV isn’t much use, is it?

No such issue exists with non-electric cars in that driving down to fumes in the tank has no effect at all on the useful service life of the vehicle. A non-electric car that’s 15 or 20 years old holds as much gas in its tank – and travels just as far – as it did when it was new. An electric car’s battery pack is unlikely to be capable of holding the same charge it could when new when it is ten years old – and maybe sooner.

And if there’s no replacement battery available – or it costs more than it’s worth to replace it – the car is useless.

Many people will find out about this after they bought an EV. It probably explains another interesting thing about EVs that the general press (and the automotive press) haven’t covered much, which is that a large percentage of first-time EV buyers didn’t buy a second one.

Yeah, well, you know what they say about “fool me once, fool me twice.” Guess that smug, superior feeling an EV owner gets from knowing he’s being a good, obedient little shitlib and Doing His Part to help save Gaia only goes so far when, after being a full-time pain in the ass the whole time he’s had it, his little toy strugglebuggy shits the bed for good at the exact same time his neighbor’s Focus or Elantra is only just beginning to hit its stride.

Moar Maine Coon!

Posted on May 5, 2022May 6, 2022 by Mike

As part of a discussion about the coolest housecats in the world with my friend Don, he confessed to never having seen one, even in a photo. Naturally, I busied myself right away with a Startpage image search, wherein I caught some really good ‘uns.

B-O-B — *Entry #1 in the CF Biggest Orange Belly contest*

Harvey...? — *Her sciatica is gonna give her fits tomorrow*

*This is how Resting Bitch Face usually presents in the Maine Coon Cat*

BIGGEST ORANGE BELLY!!! — *I think we may have found our winner in the B-O-B contest*

Cozy Cat — *How total contentment usually presents in the Maine Coon Cat*

Gimme shelter

Posted on May 5, 2022May 5, 2022 by Mike

I’ve always wanted a Maine Coon Cat, which as far as I’m concerned are among the verymost way-cool pets one can possibly have. I’ve actually known a few, actually, which served as confirmation for my fondness for them. Unfortunately, it’s a virtual certainty that I’ll never have one, for reasons simultaneously both varied and incontestable. So I’ve tried to ease the heartache by looking at Maine Coon-oriented websites now and then, even going so far as to sign up for the email list of two of the better ones.

Today, I found this urgent missive in Ye Aulde Inboxxe:

Mike — Support Mom’s favorite breed — A card or engraved pet gift will be sent directly to your gift recipient for Mother’s Day:

HELP MAINE COONS

DONATE TO 200+ OTHER BREEDS

VIEW ADOPTABLE PETS

Select ‘Instant Gift’ when donating to send an instant email gift today. Cards and engraved pet gifts requested today may not deliver until Monday. Donation acknowledgment gifts are also available for other occasions including birthdays, anniversaries, and memorials.

Mom’s favorite breed, hell. My mom just spent a few weeks staying at my cousin Karen’s place, whose husband recently died after having spent MONTHS at his brother’s bedside in an Arizona hospital, attempting to comfort him any way he could while he slowly died from cancer. The killer note is that, the morning after the night Karen’s husband had gotten back home, he keeled over on the kitchen floor, dead from a sudden heart attack.

Point being, Karen has two Maine Coons in temporary residence at her place. My mom loves ’em all to pieces, but as is typical of the breed, they’re both inclined to curl up on the nearest available lap waiting for some love to be thrown their way. After a short petting session, my mom’s bony 84 year old legs begin to ache and stiffen, requiring her to shoo the economy-sized fluffballs off and away, then painfully climb to her benumbed feet and do the Biden zombie-shuffle around the house until blood flow and sensation in her legs is fully restored.

By an amazing coincidence, I had a long conversation about all that with my mom just last night, then received the above Maine Coon email this morning. I’ll take this curious sequence of events as a directive from God Himself that I must post something on Maine Coons right away, lest I find myself cast into Outer Darkness to be punctured with tiny pitchforks wielded by proportionately diminutive Satans hanging from my corporeal being in Divine retribution. Being acutely reluctant to directly defy a personal command sent to me from Heaven above, I now fulfill my quest with a few lovely Maine Coon pitchers. We’ll begin with a map of US states with Maine Coons available for adoption, which I find astounding:

*Tortoiseshell Xena having her din-din, wants to know what the hell you’re looking at*

Sluggo III — *Orange tabby Punkin Boy is just too fluffy for words*

AWWWW — *Pocket-sized kitten is just too, too sweet*

*A Maine Coon Tux-cat? Reminds me of my own Fuzzle Wuzzle, a short-hair Tuxie herself with personality and smarts to burn*

It seems incredible that I didn’t establish a “Critters” category years ago. But thats aiight, I gots one now.

NASA beclowns humanity

Posted on May 5, 2022May 5, 2022 by Mike

Remember, these are America’s greatest minds we’re talking about here.

NASA to launch naked pictures of humans to space in hope of ‘attracting aliens’

DUDE! Have you seen what humans look like these days? Most of us have devolved into doughy, flubberous tubs of jigglesome goo at this point, barely hardy enough to peel themselves off the dangerously over-stressed sofa and lumber over to the fridge for another desperately-needed snack. The remainder of us hoo-mans are, quite literally, starving—horrifying, dead-eyed skels who more closely resemble Auschwitz survivors about ten minutes after being liberated by Allied forces than anything else.

Not for nothing, folks, but I’m thinking “attract” might not exactly be the mot juste here.

NASA scientists plan to launch pictures of naked humans into space in the hope of luring aliens to us.

The depictions will also include an invitation to respond should an intelligent alien race find the space nudes.

Fortunately, the hypothetical aliens shouldn’t be too shocked by the unsolicited nudes.

The pictures aren’t graphic photographs of naked humans but a drawing of a naked man and a woman next to a depiction of DNA.

The article includes this space smut, which is…well, let’s be charitable and call the pre-K level drawing “good enough for government work” and just leave it at that, shall we?

The main aim of the BITG project is to send a message to any alien civilizations that could be out there.

Scientists think the pixelated illustration of a naked man and woman waving hello could help us finally make contact with extraterrestrials.

Oh, sure. Either that, or guarantee that they will never, ever permit such contact, preferring to make a mad dash for galaxy’s edge instead. NASA’s ridiculous and inartful scribblings are more likely to instill in Marvin the Martian a frantic desire to put as much distance between himself and humanity as he possible can, seems to me. The next passage glosses over something important.

Scientists think a binary-coded message is most likely to be understood by aliens.

The scientists explain in their study: “Though the concept of mathematics in human terms is potentially unrecognizable to extra-terrestrial intelligence, binary is likely universal across all intelligence.”

Across all HUMAN-type intelligence, you mean—intelligence itself being strictly definable in terms comprehensible to HUMANS. Me, you, NASA, everybody—none of us have any clue as to alien physiognomy. We don’t know if they even HAVE brains, never mind how those brains work or how advanced their cognitive function might be. IF they have brains at all. Alien perception of basic physical reality might well diverge so radically from our own as to disallow any possibility of communication between our two species. Such an unbridgeable chasm renders NASA’s fanciful speculation that “binary”—an exclusively HUMAN construct, mind, never independently present in Earth’s planetary bioforms, geology, or atmosphere—is “likely universal across all intelligence” the callow daydream that it most definitely is.

This is where we must pay our respects to an irony so deep, so powerful, so profound it almost has a discernible aroma about it: only our most brilliant scientists and thinkers could be arrogant enough to blithely skate past the abundantly obvious possibility that alien life forms are likely to be so wildly at variance with us in every imaginable way—not to mention the UNimaginable ones, which would of necessity be beyond counting—that the very idea of ANY commonality between us physically, intellectually, or emotionally is patently absurd.

Not so for the good-enough-for-government-work Superbrains of NASA, however. These impeccably well-educated and competent “experts” seem to think it squarely within the expansive ken of such Übermenschen as themselves to make certain assumptions without squandering a second of their priceless time and energy pondering whether or not those assumptions are valid. Funny, innit, that one of the bedrock prequisites which help to not only identify true intelligence but also elevate it from mere gauzy potentiality into a genuinely useful thing—from the nebulous stuff of idle fantasy into real-world practicality—would turn out to be plain, familiar old humility.

Funnier still that arrogance should be the easiest, most natural-feeling attitude for most humans to adopt, the very first resort of both the egotistical but otherwise well-intentioned chowderhead and the conniving scalawag whenever forced to confront his own insufficiency of knowledge, his unwarranted overconfidence, his fallibility—while humility is by far the most awkward, toilsome, and wholly alien-seeming and oblique character trait to summon, much less to maintain. The demands humility imposes are numerous, non-trivial, and painful. But the rewards it bestows are rich beyond belief, a fulsome bounty reinforced and multiplied every time we choose it as our response to challenge or adversity.

Arrogance always makes one look like a goddamned jackass in the end. Worse still, most who succumb to its empty blandishments never even know what utter fools arrogance has made of them, their heads being crammed too far up their own asses to see the light of day. Those capable of inculcating and bolstering a proper sense of humility, on the other hand, will find themselves widely admired and respected for the very trait that did so much to ensure their success, whatever their chosen field of endeavor may be.

They added: “The proposed message includes basic mathematical and physical concepts to establish a universal means of communication followed by information on the biochemical composition of life on Earth, the Solar System’s time-stamped position in the Milky Way relative to known globular clusters, as well as digitized depictions of the Solar System, and Earth’s surface.”

“A universal means of communication.” Do these people even hear their words? Across, what, about 2-300,000 fucking years of the existence of what we think of as “modern” man, no “universal means of communication” has ever been developed. EVER. Dios mio, mankind has never created a universal language in all that time, nor is there the slightest prospect of such a thing on the horizon. But hey, that can’t stop the bright boys at NASA, and why should it? They’ve been sooooo incredibly successful since the halcyon days of the 1960s and 70s, right?

The concept of sending depictions of naked humans to space isn’t new.

The Pioneer plaques sent to space on the 1972 Pioneer 10 and 1973 Pioneer 11 missions, also featured drawings of naked humans.

The plaques are attached to the antennas on the crafts.

They’re still sailing away from Earth to this day.

With nary a peep heard from any of our prospective alien friends from that day to this. Those NASA folks might be smart, but they don’t seem to have learned a whole lot. But hey, I’m probably just too dumb to understand such heady stuff; it’s all probably WAY over my head. So shamed am I by my intellectual inadequacy, I’d never even DREAM of asking the NASA brain trust to explain—in detail and with extensive confirmatory references in the footnotes—exactly what all that taxpayer money bought for us.

Hope those brainiacs will remember to request access to the FBI “evidence” locker so’s they can glom some kiddie-porn to slap onto that phallic launch vehicle of theirs. Celebrating the entire spectrum of human sexual “diversity” is what the modern American “space program” is all about, don’tchaknow.

Oh, and Mooselimbs too. Gotta throw a few Korans in there, maybe a nice set of those checkered kitchen drapes they like to wear on their heads.

Guitar heaven

Posted on May 4, 2022May 4, 2022 by Mike

Ed Driscoll reports from the Dallas International Guitar Festival, and if you’re at all into guitars, it’s pretty sweet stuff.

On Saturday, I attended the 2022 Dallas International Guitar Festival at the Dallas Market Hall, the second festival after a timeout in 2020 due to the pandemic lockdown. As I wrote last year at Instapundit, unlike the previous guitar shows in the DFW Metroplex, 2021’s show had a somewhat more low-key feel, lacking the large exhibits by the music industry heavy hitters such as Gibson and Fender. (In pre-pandemic times, a large trailer owned by Gibson would be displaying their newest and most impressive guitars, Fender usually had a large display, and Roland was showing off the latest effects in their Boss line as well.)

While Gibson and Fender were still absent in person, this time around it was nice to see a few bigger names back on display, such as…

Fender, Boss, Gretsch, Taylor, Eventide; Les Paul, Strat, Tele, Black Beauty—the names alone evoke an overwhelming nostalgia in me whose taste is bittersweet at best nowadays, seeing as how my hands have been utterly ruined by the curse of DePuytren’s Contracture, or Viking Disease. My left-hand ring and pinky fingers are curled tightly up against my palm and can’t be straightened, even by physical force; as I tell foks who ask, my once-agile fretting hand is useful mainly as a place to hang my keys, no more. The right hand is only a little bit behind, but well on its way. The sensation brought on by this condition is so intensely unpleasant it actually wakes me up at night sometimes. It’s fucking awful, is what it is.

All that aside, any halfway serious guitar slinger—by which I do NOT necessarily mean a professional musician who earns his daily bread wielding an axe onstage and/or in the studio—will enjoy Ed’s reportage tremendously. The photos alone will be enough to bring a tear of joy to your jaded eye, trust me. Although I must say the Les Paul pics run way heavy on the Tobacco and Honey Burst varieties—which, I can’t stand those ugly, dull-looking turdballs—and way light on Cherry Sunburst—which are my all-time faves. Examples:

Purty! — *Cherry Burst: a little bit of Heaven on Earth*

Of course and as always, your mileage may etc on that. There’s no real shame in disagreeing with me; it just means your taste is in your ass, that’s all. I should maybe also mention the subspecies of the parent Tobacco and Cherry Burst finishes, such as Lemon and Tangerine. In fact, the Honey Burst model depicted above is actually a sub-category of Tobacco Burst its own bad self.

One last photo from Ed’s post to take home witcha.

For the uninitiated, that two-headed beastie at Foreground Left flying Distressed White colors and decked out in its Sunday-best gold hardware is something of an odd duck: a double-necked Strat-style body, with the top half being pretty much the standard three-pickup Stratocaster deal. The bottom half, though, veers off in a decidedly different direction: one single-coil pickup, slightly beefier than those found on Strats, mounted on a steel plate way back by the bridge with the familiar, jaunty Telecaster tilt. It also sports the knurled steel volume/tone knobs and long-throw three-position pickup selector switch which typically adorn the Telecaster control panel.

Ahh, the precious memories. All well beyond my reach now, alas. As my Uncle Murray always insisted, with no little heat: Gettin’ old sucks. Wise man, Uncle Murray was.

Tender mercies

Posted on May 4, 2022May 4, 2022 by Mike

Greatest. Auto. Review. EVAR.

‘Suffice to say the A110 absolutely crushes expectations, and your berry hanger’
The absolutely brilliant Alpine A110 is anything but sterile to drive
You’ll have heard how the Alpine A110’s combination of lightness and rightness has earned the admiration of evo’s tillermen. And that’s all well and good, but what’s it like if you’ve just had a vasectomy? To find out, I went to a central London clinic and invited a large, medically qualified man to have a good rummage amongst my underparts, then realised with dismay that I had booked to borrow a low-slung French sports coupe almost immediately afterwards.

The first thing to cross your mind upon seeing the A110 is just how little it is and also how much your balls hurt. You can immediately sense that this is a car from which all excess has been banished, and this impression is reinforced by opening the featherweight aluminium door, which is so lacking in mass that it puts no strain whatsoever on your mangled knacker sack, unlike its low-slung driving position, which is absolute agony.

Once in, you can take a moment to admire the bespoke seats with their one-piece backs and upsettingly unpillowy cushions. You might be interested to learn that these chairs weigh just 13.1kg each, despite fine detailing including quilted leather and a grippy central section that expertly rides your jeans up into the tenderest parts of your plum pouch.

The rest of the interior is, perhaps, a little less successful, featuring a smattering of Renault parts bin components, including remote audio controls seemingly taken from the Renault 19, and the flat keyless entry card from the Laguna, though wrapped in a smart leather case that makes it both more attractive to look at and better equipped to shift awkwardly across your pocket and nudge stoutly into your tenderised clacker hammock.

Okay, that there is some truly inspired stuff. Hats off to Richard Porter for his dedication to his craft, taking one for the team and putting his boy beans in harm’s way to bring us this truly stellar article. Well done, young feller, well done.

“Clacker hammock.” I swear, I just can’t stop laughing at that one.

Diversity-Americans: not up to snuff

Posted on May 4, 2022May 4, 2022 by Mike

Forget it, Jake, it’s Coontown.

When you order ice cream, you don’t want to hear “We’re out” or “It’s broken,” yet it has been happening so often across the United States in recent years that it became somewhat of a cultural meme that spawned considerable media interest. Reports indicate that up to a quarter of McDonald’s ice cream machines are not operational at any given time.

Ice cream sales make up 3% of total McDonald’s sales (over $22 billion annually), amounting to about a quarter of a billion dollars a year. If the company is losing out on roughly 25% of that, we have a $56 million question on our hands every year.

Media outlets looking to cover the story and capitalize on the “McBroken” meme published dozens of quite lousy pieces concluding that the extensive cleaning process and heat sanitization cycle are to blame for the machine’s maladies. I never bought that story for a few reasons. One thing that doesn’t add up with the “cleaning” explanation is why any restaurant would clean a machine while it is open, and how it could be true that ten to 25% of all working hours in them are dedicated to “cleaning.” Perhaps nobody wants to clean the machines, so they merely say that it is not working.

Then, in April 2021, a YouTuber named Johnny Harris uploaded a now-viral video with over nine million views titled, “The REAL Reason McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken.” In this 30-minute exposé, Harris elaborates a new theory that has gained acceptance as the actual reason for the McDonald’s ice cream downtime. Harris explains that the manufacturer of the ice cream machines, Taylor, is to blame. Taylor is the industry standard and the same company that makes ice cream machines for most quick-service restaurants, and has been supplying the equipment to McDonald’s since 1956. The next time you see an ice cream machine, look for the manufacturer’s name. It’s probably a Taylor.

Harris posits that Taylor has made the machines intentionally onerous to operate so they can generate future revenue out of repair contracts. The theory is that Taylor deliberately makes ice cream machines that are always in need of service and are generally too complicated for restaurant workers to understand. Hence, they call Taylor’s service technicians, which keeps the company flush with cash flow. It’s an interesting theory, and the video hams it up. There are plenty of suspenseful cuts, long stares into the camera, and moments when you are supposed to be in shock as facts are uncovered, such as the long working history between McDonald’s and Taylor. Harris wants you to believe that corporate greed on Taylor’s end is to blame. In a way, Harris created the perfect scapegoat: shifting the blame from restaurant workers to shadowy business practices. People loved it, too. And it is entirely wrong.

There are some holes in this story as well…

Of all the outlets to cover the story, none of them got close to what I found, including The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Mashed, Boston Globe, Wired, and Inc. Vice News almost got there; they had the proper dataset to solve the mystery, but they fumbled, as expected.

First, I had to dig back a couple of years to find an article I remembered seeing which confirmed something we already know: restaurants owned by blacks, in black areas, do not perform as well as those in “less diverse” communities. McDonald’s has over 200 black franchisees out of the 1,700 or so owners — enough to make the data statistically reliable. Stores that the black franchisees own an average of $68,000 net less per month than all franchise stores. That’s $816,000 per year, per store, lower than the chain’s average.

There are probably many reasons for this disparity. Some black franchise owners postulated that a lack of black leadership in the McDonald’s corporation is an issue. I’m not sure there is a connection. Another issue raised was that black owners tend to own stores in black neighborhoods, where costs are high and sales are lower. There is a notion that nebulous socioeconomic issues tied to things like “white privilege,” “white supremacy,” and “systemic racism” are to blame: i.e., blacks have less money as a whole to spend on fast food, therefore making the sales of black-owned McDonald’s restaurants lower. To the extent that socioeconomic forces are genuine and legitimate, I will say the issue is not systemic racism or white people, but sub-Saharan genetics.

One of the black franchisees was interviewed about his experience. He said “my stores are hellholes,” and lamented that they are robbed once or twice per month. His further comments revealed that his stores are often vandalized: people destroy the bathrooms and break the windows, and a murder had even taken place on the premises of one restaurant.

The murder in the McDonald’s reminded me of a grocery store in Atlanta called “Murder Kroger.” The Ponce de Leon Avenue Kroger earned that nickname by being the stage for many violent crimes. Some Kroger stores actually left black neighborhoods not far from where I live because their outlets there were the worst in the company, suffering from extreme shoplifting and security issues. After pulling out of these neighborhoods, the company was declared “racist” and blamed for contributing to “food deserts” in black communities. The stores were simply not profitable and not worth the headache to keep open. Although some argue there is a white supremacist conspiracy theory keeping blacks from having nice grocery stores in their neighborhoods, the black community itself runs them out of business through their behavior. As states and cities continue to decriminalize shoplifting, this trend will continue.

Another black McDonald’s franchisee said that his stores were among the worst in the company. They have low cash flows, serious staffing problems, and are often robbed. The black owners often blame McDonald’s corporate. Still, they did not seem to realize that their real gripe is with their own community and the behavior of their racial cohort. Part of the extra costs that the black franchises have to pay are for security, high insurance premiums, and constant repairs.

I interviewed a McDonald’s employee who works in a very “diverse” restaurant. He confirmed some of my theories and observations and added great additional insights. He mentioned that the restaurant where he works often has to repair bullet holes resulting from drive-by shootings in the street where they are located. Sure, racism could be blamed for the lack of sales in black stores in black neighborhoods, but one might also suggest that many people don’t want to put their lives at risk for a McFlurry or Big Mac.

With that information in mind, and knowing that demographics affects the rate of “broken” ice cream machines, we can draw further conclusions.

Ice cream machines do not know they are in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Thus, we can probably rule out the existence of “racist ice cream machines” that make a conscious decision to stop working so they can deprive black and Latinx communities of ice cream.

Here is where we intersect with the meta-story about journalism. The objective of journalism is no longer to inform the public, but to weave a story of their choosing into a larger tapestry. Here, we see that the mainstream media was not willing or capable of telling the full story. Millions of people reading and watching the dozens of articles and videos on the matter have been led to believe in a conspiracy theory about ice cream machines and corporate greed, when the reality — and much more plausible tale — is one of basic biological differences between groups of people.

Further, it’s possible, and perhaps even likely, that the current mainstream journalist class is made up of people entirely incapable of uncovering deeper truths and unwilling to process any information that might contradict a larger societal theme. Much like the black franchisees, I’m sure they found a way to blame anybody but those actually responsible.

As is the case with everything else in my “social capital anthology,” this isn’t an article about broken ice cream machines. This is about what happens to a society when even the base level of social functionality — the bare minimum standard required to have something that looks like a real society — cannot be met.

At some point along this trajectory, there will no longer be any upside rationalizations to be found. There will come a time when the people who cannot run the ice cream machine are not doing you a favor by making you choose better food options. There will come a time when the people who cannot run the ice cream machine are running things of a much greater importance. What will society look like when the person who is today a McDonald’s Assistant Manager who can’t or won’t ensure that the fries are hot is tasked with staffing air control towers or repairing bridges and roads? What happens when the worker who decided it “wasn’t his job” to clean the ice cream machine feels the same way about inspecting the brakes on your car? What happens when you very much need something to be done correctly, but everybody at the department in charge of whatever you need are those people who could barely keep an ice cream machine running for a full day?

How does that society look?

A very easy question for contemporary Americans to answer, most especially those unfortunate souls trapped in our urban hellholes. All they need to do is look out their window to see it crashing and burning all around them.

A lengthy excerpt from a lengthy article, of which you simply must read the all.

(Via WRSA)

Fun with factz

Posted on May 3, 2022May 3, 2022 by Mike

America’s Governor responds forcefully to calumny most vile.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blasted the corporate media on Monday, following reports that he attended the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington D.C., Saturday night. The event included many of the big names in politics and the media, and was hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), an organization of journalists who cover the White House.

“I would never attend that. I have no interest in that,” he said when asked about the event during an unrelated news conference in Jacksonville. “I did not watch it. I don’t care what they do. But for them to advertise me when that invitation was rejected by my office. That is a lie,” DeSantis said, adding later that the reason the corporate media is “so reviled” is because of its habit of perpetuating provable lies.

The confusion came after the host of the event, comedian Trevor Noah, falsely claimed during his routine that DeSantis was in the audience, pointing and waving at someone in the audience as if he were the governor.

“One of my favorites, Ron DeSantis is here. Oh man, I’m actually surprised that he found the time,” Noah said. “You know he has been so busy trying to outmaneuver Trump for 2024. I see you, Ron. I see you, player. I see what you been doing!” the comedian added, pointing toward someone in the audience.

The rest of the twerpy shitlib’s little skit didn’t improve from there, to no one’s surprise, being a tired regurgitation of the same old tired Lefty one-liners flogging the same old tired Lefty hobbyhorses in the same old tired way. If you’re one of those people who thinks watching a no-talent Leftard C-lister reassuring a funnybone-bereft Leftard audience that yes, we really ARE the Smart Ones, oh yes we are!! amounts to a swell way to spend your evening, well hey, have at it, and all the best to ya.

If, on the other hand, you’re the kind of guy who knows a small auditorium’s worth of tightassed, smarmy flatworms, not one of whom would recognize funny if it knocked them down, tore off their skinny jeans, raunched them up the fudge tunnel, and left them a sore-assed heap on the sidewalk tearfully pleading for you to CALL ME! when you see one…well, here, have yourself a little more really funny stuff.

“Why are people saying Governor DeSantis is at the White House Correspondents Dinner!? Because DC Democrats and media (but I repeat myself) can’t stop talking about him even during their nerd prom?” DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw tweeted on Sunday. “This is wishful thinking/obsession.”

DeSantis expressed his disgust with the media on Monday for getting yet another story wrong while pretending to be “paragons of truth.”

“And so here they are saying how important they are that they’re somehow these paragons of truth, and yet there they are lying about something that is readily verifiable,” he said. “And so the idea that I was there is false the idea that I would have ever gone is false, and why they would want to try to perpetuate a lie about that I don’t know. But I think it just shows you why that cabal of people in DC [and] New York, are so reviled by so many Americans. I think it’s a reputation that’s been well deserved.”

Deserved is right, and many times over.

It’s starting to seem kinda pitiful, don’tchathink, how Leftards carry on trying to poke and prod and irritate people who have clearly moved on, and no longer give a fiddler’s fuck about what they might think, say, or feel about anything. Yet still they persist. Now, that’s bad enough for them, absolutely. But now, with this latest feeble Hail-Mary lunge trying to trip up DeSantis—claiming he was at Nerd Prom when he provably wasn’t, ferchrissakes—all they managed in the end was to look like fools lost in Loserville, mired up to their clavicles with no chance of finding their way out again.

Meanwhile, DeSantis is floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee, leaving droolcase Proggy canvasbacks baffled, bemused, and punchdrunk, searching frantically about for a neutral corner to go collapse in. If Reagan was the Teflon President, well, I do believe Ron DeSantis is rapidly earning himself a similar nom de guerre. The shitlibs just can’t seem to lay a glove on him no matter how hard they try, and it’s a total gas to watch, as good as 1980’s Hearns/Sugar Ray Leonard classic donnybrook.

One of the bigger reasons I’m such a big fan of Da Gov is that he’s one of a very, very few Righty public figures who are beginning to see the value in the approach I’ve been urging for so long: stop already with the expressions of stunned horror over each day’s fresh new example of hypocrisy, unfairness, double standards, and wheeled goalposts from the Left, as if their reliably bad behavior could be anything more than mere routine by now—just standard, dull fare, not really worth taking note of anymore, if it ever was.

Anyone still genuinely surprised by the Left’s endlessly obnoxious monkeyshines after all this time probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house without close adult supervision, lest they fall down a well or some such thing. Their guardian, keeper, or warden needs to remove all sharp objects from the vicinity posthaste, put a large cork on the tines of his fork at dinnertime, and clip a leash around his neck whose other end is attached to the clothesline in the backyard, like my Grandma used to do to my dad when he was a young ‘un so as to keep him from wandering far enough off to get himself in trouble.

Probably the most useful thing any Real American can do whilst we all wait around for the ball to drop and hostilities to commence is to separate and segregate ourselves from Leftists to the greatest extent possible. When forced into any sort of contact or congress with them, we should igjore them when we can, treat them with undisguised contempt when we can’t. Under NO circumstances should we give the least indication that we take them seriously; that their views are in any way worthy of serious consideration; that we respect or like them personally. We should instead think of them as the witless pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates they truly are, worthy only of being stomped on and crushed into noisome goo under our boots.

“What would you Democrats do if a Republican said that?” “Dems won’t like it much when the Republicans treat them the exact same way once we get back in charge again!” “We must not sink to their level! That’s not who we are!” “Oh look, the Leftard protesters trashed the park, but WE always clean up after ourselves!” And perhaps my all-time favorite: “They put 23 of us into the hospital today, but at our rally last week none of them were injured!”

Folks, if you’re talking like this, you are NOT winning, you are LOSING. It’s time and past time to retire all follow-through-free rhetoric, no matter how thunderous. All those with a fucking lick of sense know The Enemy top to bottom, stem to stern, and forwards and backwards by now. Any who DON’T know, or are pretending they don’t, should be put out to pasture and forgotten right along with the aforementioned empty rhetoric. It’s time to start waging this war as if we mean to win the goddamned thing. Note ye well: no war was ever won by talking one’s enemy to death. You have to KILL THEM. You must BREAK THEIR SHIT.

One last Sunshine State-style bitchslap for y’all to groove on. It would seem that when DeSantis The Barbarian hired the endlessly entertaining Chris Pushaw as his press secretary, he accomplished something Trump talked about throughout the 2016 election campaign but, inexplicably, never even came close to actually doing: HIRING THE BEST PEOPLE.

wow, politicians who spent the last 2 years pushing lockdowns, forced masking, and the unconstitutional OSHA vaccine mandate are pretending to be worried about "a future in which the government can potentially interfere in the personal decisions you make about your life" https://t.co/IoUH83FwVK

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) May 3, 2022

Ouch! That one stung all the way over here. Go get ’em, Christina. Another good ‘un, wherein Pushaw gives Minnesota dunderhead Amy Klobuchar a good pantsing.

Amy Klobuchar @amyklobuchar
Health care decisions should be between a woman and her doctor, not Ted Cruz.

Christina Pushaw @ChristinaPushaw
Replying to @amyklobuchar
So nice to see Democrats taking a stand against vaccine mandates and using the word “woman” instead of “birthing person.”

Oof. So what next, then? Pushaw and DeSantis have effectively thrown down the gauntlet, serving notice to one and all: from here on out, Our Side will be flying the Black Flag as our battlefield standard. No rules, no remorse, no mercy, no prisoners—it’s kill or be killed, and none but the victorious shall survive.

It’s funny ’cause it’s true

Posted on May 3, 2022May 3, 2022 by Mike

Swiped from one of Glenn’s commenters, via WRSA.

If Leftwits couldn’t contradict themselves eighteen to twenty times before lunch every day, they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. For them, inconsistency isn’t an aberration, a simple error, or an intellectual shortcoming or oversight; it’s a lifestyle.

CF Search

Login, RSS, &c

CF Archives

Categories

2A/Mostly Guns

Alt-American

Big Dogs

Essayists

Mil

Nuttin’ But News

Odds Bodkins

Overseas/Non-US

Portals

Pure Bloggery

REAL Journalism

Substack Scalawags

The Funny Pages

Comments policy

CF Glossary

Subscribe to CF!

Shameless begging

Correspondence

Allied territory

Notable Quotes

RSS feed

.