Flotsam and/or Jetsam

Turd World problems

Posted on March 23, 2020March 23, 2020 by Mike

Well, I admit I didn’t see this coming. But maybe I should have.

Shredded T-Shirts Used as Toilet Paper Are Backing Up Sewer Systems
Thanks to all of you numbskulls who bought a million rolls of toilet paper in the last few weeks, some California towns are experiencing sewer problems because people are using disinfectant wipes, paper towels, and even shredded T-shirts and then flushing them.

Not that I’m a fan of the panic-buying Sheeple and their mad stampede off the c-virus cliff or anything, Rick, but I’d say it’s the people who were too stupid to go out and grab themselves a newspaper when they ran out of skid paper instead of trying to flush a friggin’ T shirt who are more at fault here. The original report:

The toilet paper shortage is leading some people to resort to other ways of wiping and it caused a problem for part of the Redding sewer system Wednesday night.

Someone apparently used shredded T-shirts when they didn’t have toilet tissue, wastewater management officials said Thursday.

As a result, one of the city’s sewer lines backed up at a lift station and workers had to take quick action to avert a dangerous spill.

“The pumps were clogged by what appeared to be shredded T-shirts that were used in place of toilet paper,” the city said.

If you don’t have toilet paper, city wastewater officials have this advice for other materials: “Bag it. Don’t flush it.”

Annnnd…then what? Bury it in the backyard? Leave it by the side of the road somewhere? Personally, I’d probably just set it afire and leave it on the porch of some neighbor I didn’t like, but I’m kind of a jerk like that sometimes. Back to Moran:

All we need is another public health crisis to deal with. Government agents will have to start going door to door and seize TP and distribute it to the truly needy.

Let’s not give ’em any more bright ideas, ‘kay?

The Romans used to scrape themselves clean and then enjoy a nice cleansing bath. No sewer problems there.

Well, they used to scrape themselves, maybe. Don’t know how “clean” that got ’em, although the “cleansing bath” part implies an unsatisfactory outcome. The Ayatollah Khomeini famously advised using a pebble for the purpose—among many, many other bizarre Allah-sanctioned shithouse do’s and don’ts—but I don’t care how many times anybody recommends it as a good example, I ain’t gonna follow.

What is normal, what is not

Posted on March 22, 2020March 22, 2020 by Mike

Some historical perspective, always a useful thing, from my friend Claire Berlinski’s excellent newsletter, aptly named Claire’s Invariably Interesting Thoughts.

The Principal of Somerville, one of Oxford University’s 38 colleges, recently sent a message to Somerville alumni, asking them to share with each other their reflections on the pandemic—our strange new human predicament—and offer each other their support.

In response, my dear friend, Gaby Charing, wrote the following. I asked her for permission to share her thoughts with you, which she graciously offered.

London

March 22, 2020

I already have my death booked. After living for seven years with bowel cancer, I’m no longer having treatment. An end-of-life care package is a phone call away. I’m just stopped at the lights.

Death doesn’t frighten me. I’m past all that. Truly.

You, by contrast, weren’t expecting this. Yes, anyone can be cut down in their prime, but that isn’t what’s happening here. You’re all, understandably, scared out of your wits, afraid that, in spite of being, maybe, in rude health, you will catch the virus and die. This is not normal. It isn’t normal for an entire nation to feel that way.

The last time the entire population of the United Kingdom felt so afraid was during World War 2. I agree with those who say it is the best analogy. Contrasts are already being drawn: “WW2 brought people together; this is driving us apart”. Don’t go so fast. Was the Blitz Spirit really so wonderful? Is the separation now really so bad? Time, and human ingenuity, will tell.

Since this thing kicked off, I’ve had something going through my head like a video loop. Many people know that during World War 2, the Special Operations Executive recruited British people who could pass as French to operate in France behind enemy lines. These were ordinary people from all walks of life who just happened to have excellent French. It was desperately dangerous work, and some of them ended up in Buchenwald.

I watched an interview with one, who’d come to London after the War. He and a friend encountered a funeral procession. They looked at each other and said, “Only one body?” This is not normal.

In her book Natural Goodness, my philosophy tutor, Philippa Foot, writes about the young Germans who refused to serve in the Wehrmacht during WW2. Their “choice” was to serve or be executed. She was making an argument about the irrelevance of maximising human happiness as an aim in such a situation. My point is simply that to put young people on the cusp of adulthood in that position is not normal.

June 1940: the fall of France. My mother and her British family were living in Arcachon. Her brother and my father appeared, rushed them from the beach to a car, drove as fast as they could to Bordeaux, and managed to get them all on a boat headed for England. It had to go as far out as the Azores to avoid German bombing and torpedoes. After five days they finally arrived at Falmouth in Cornwall, where the WRVS gave them Cornish pasties and mugs of tea. My mother said it was the best meal she ever had. This is not normal.

A few months earlier, a family member was part of the September 1939 intake to officer training at Sandhurst. The course was truncated from nine months to six. They were sent to their units and straight off to fight, many of them entirely ill-equipped to lead men into battle, which is what they were learning to do.

On arrival at Sandhurst, their first task was to deal with the horses. Horses were ridden all the time, for ceremonial purposes and because these were horsy young men, many of whom would become cavalry officers. But it was recognised that in what was to come, the horses wouldn’t be much use; so the order was given to shoot them and bury them in pits.

Eighteen-year-old boys obliged to do that to animals they loved. It is not normal.

We know that sustained pressure can cause normal people to behave abnormally. The Nazi camps provide examples of the most exalted and the most depraved behaviour. Some of the things that were done by prisoners to other prisoners defy belief.

You must not allow that to happen here because that is not who you—we—are.

But it isn’t who those people were either. Honestly, truly, it was not. So I think you potentially have a serious problem on your hands.

I’d say that’s putting it quite mildly indeed. And the virus problem itself ain’t the worst of ’em, either.

If you’re interested in subscribing to Claire’s monthly newsletter yourself—and you should be—here’s where you can sign up.

Shredded!

Posted on March 22, 2020March 22, 2020 by Mike

Hol-eee CRAP.

Mechanic ‘Accidentally’ Fires Vulcan Cannon & Obliterates F-16 Sitting on the Runway
The F-16, hit by the cannon fire, caught fire and exploded having recently been refuelled and made ready for a training sortie due to take place later that day. Another aircraft received minor damage.

If anyone ever needed a reminder of the lethal dangers of working with live munitions, then a recent incident at Florennes Air Base in Belgium is the ultimate wake-up call.

It is thought a maintenance worker accidentally activated the six-barrel 20mm Vulcan M61A-1 cannon hitting another plane parked on the runway.

“You can’t help thinking of what a disaster this could have been,” he said. The area was secured and checked to ensure there was no further discharge of toxic substances.

They have pics of the smoking ruins, and they’re…gruesome. Naturally, the BAF brass SPRANG into action right away:

The Belgian Air Force was reluctant to discuss the cause of the incident until the full investigation had been completed but were quick to condemn Belgian newspaper De Standaard for an article for unfairly lampooning the Air Force for destroying one of its own aircraft.

“Unfairly”? A little history, which is always of interest to a geek like moi.

Two fighter squadrons, 1 Squadron, formed in 1917, and 350 Squadron formed in 1942 in Britain during World War Two, are based at Florennes.

The base was used by the German Luftwaffe during WWII up until its capture by the Allies in September 1944. Ju88, Bf110 night-fighters and Focke-Wulf Fw190 day-fighters were based at the airfield.

Following capture the Allies based the USAAF 430th Fighter Squadron here flying ground attack missions with P38 Lockheed Lightnings. At night the Americans flew Northrop P-61 Black Widows with the 422nd Night Fighter Squadron.

My fellow military-aviation buffs will be quite familiar with the hallowed P38, whose proud escutcheon is currently being disgraced by the F35 Lightning II. Amusingly, the less well-known Black Widow looks quite similar:

Back to the F16, which still gets my vote as one of the prettiest fighters ever built.

The F-16, Fighting Falcon was developed by General Dynamics for the US Air Force as a superiority day-fighter and proved to be a versatile all-weather aircraft.

It’s also proved to be capable of kicking the crap out of the F35 in a dogfight—a bit of an unfair comparison, maybe, since avoiding a dogfight altogether is kinda the whole point behind the F35’s overall design.

Via MisHum, who quips: “We’ve all had bad days at work, amirite? I don’t think your day was ever quite this bad.” God, I should hope not.

Jersey dhimmis embrace Teh Suck

Posted on March 21, 2020March 22, 2020 by Mike

While your attention was diverted, a thing happened.

New Jersey City Approves Changes to Noise Ordinance to Allow Islamic Call to Prayer to Broadcast Five Times a Day – Beginning at 6 AM
After extensive debate, the City Council on Tuesday night voted 5-4 to approve changes in Paterson’s noise control ordinance that supporters say will allow mosques to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer five times a day.

The vote drew an impassioned standing room only crowd of more than 120 to City Hall, including some Christian pastors who opposed the measure, saying it would create a nuisance for people who live near mosques, as well as members of Paterson’s Muslim community, who praised the ordinance as a victory for religious inclusion.

Hey, long as those pesky Christian pastors don’t try something truly offensive and dangerously confrontational like, oh, reading from the Bible audibly in the vicinity of a mosque, say. Or, heaven forfend, handing out pamphlets advocating Christianity where a Mooselimb might see you.

Because that would be wrong.

But another resident, Steve Bauer, said mosques’ loudspeakers would be “blaring” in neighborhoods. During his comments, Bauer mentioned Islamic terrorists, including the man who was living in Paterson in October 2017 when he killed nine people at a Hudson River bike path in Manhattan.

Public nuisance isn’t the real issue; volume isn’t, and the time of day the devotional yodeling gets cranking damned sure isn’t. The issue is the establishment of a preferred state religion, most especially the official embrace of a hostile, alien pseudo-religion which is savagely antithetical to every last principle this pathetic joke of a nation used to proclaim.

City officials quickly interrupted Bauer to tell him he could only comment about the noise ordinance.

“With all due respect, this is a religious issue,” Bauer responded.

One would think so, perhaps. But ask the FBI anytime yet another known-wolf Muzzrat drives a truck onto the sidewalk to crush the infidel about his possible motive and you’ll quickly find out different.

The revised ordinance approved on Tuesday night listed 14 exemptions to the city’s noise regulations, including one that covered “bells, chimes or carillons…while being used in conjunction with religious services.” The revised ordinance also said that the call to prayer already was exempt from the noise control regulations under state law.

I’ll let Cristina say it for me:

The Islamic call to prayer should never be allowed in any city in the United States.

Amen.

It is a total nuisance and it is also a way for the Muslims in the community to show their dominance, forcing a city with Christians, Jews and perhaps agnostics to be subjected to Islam.

It is every bit of that, yep. Unfortunately, shamefully, this is just another in a lengthening list of wars we lost a long time ago. And in war there ain’t no do-overs.

In case you didn’t know, Paterson is but a short drive from a certain place in lower Manhattan some of us used to refer to as Ground Zero. A thing happened there also way, way back in antiquity—a seemingly major event at the time which has now been totally forgotten. In the fall of 2001, that was; you could look it up if you’re interested, I suppose. But hardly anybody is anymore, so why bother?

*spit*

The Teflon Don

Posted on March 21, 2020March 21, 2020 by Mike

Even in the current mess, the treacherous swine aren’t having things ALL their way.

A newly released ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that the attempts by the media and the Democratic Party to bash Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic have failed to sway voters. In fact, since the last time they polled the question, approval of Trump’s response to the pandemic has swung hugely in his favor.

According to the poll, which was conducted March 18-19th, 55 percent of voters approve of the way Trump “is handling the response to the coronavirus.” The poll shows a dramatic shift in opinion from a week earlier, when only 43 percent approved of Trump’s response to the virus.

This was not the only poll to show the public rally behind Trump during the pandemic. An Axios/Harris poll found virtually identical numbers in a survey conducted March 17-18, with 56 percent of Americans approving of Trump’s response to the pandemic, up from 51 percent in their previous poll.

In fact, the Harris poll shows Trump’s numbers have improved across the board. His overall approval went from 49 percent to 53 percent.

I saw a cheering sight earlier today, for whatever it might be worth. In the far corner of a local Wal-Mart parking lot, an enterprising middle-aged couple had set up a display table and awning to hawk miscellaneous Trump merchandise. They had “Trump 2020” banners flying over their little stand, with T-shirts, MAGA hats, and such-like paraphernalia on offer.

Now that was all fine and well, but better still was the gaggle of about fifteen or twenty customers queued up for their turn to plop down some hard-earned and grab themselves a souvenir. The crowd was chatting gaily among themselves, smiling and laughing, just generally enjoying a warm, pleasant Friday afternoon. Naturally, I honked and waved as I passed by.

Maybe I’m making a lot out of a little here, but I haven’t seen any impromptu Biden merch-purveyors around anywhere, and don’t expect to either. If I do, I don’t anticipate such a thing being any better-attended than Senile Grampy Joe’s campaign rallies have been.

Given the overwhelmingly negative coverage by the fake news media, complete with blatantly false stories, the fact that Trump’s approval in handling the pandemic is in positive territory is remarkable.

Au contraire, mon frere. At this point, all that “overwhelmingly negative coverage” is one of the things that’s driving those spiking numbers up. The peurile propaganda purveyors of Enemedia Inc, thanks to their own core dishonesty and doot-brained stupidity, have now created the situation they would very much like to have forestalled: the more they slam Trump, the harder his backers dig in their heels in support of him.

The horrid, hapless dolts have officially made Trump’s tongue-in-cheek campaign boast that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters” into something very close to literal fact. Personally, I wouldn’t be much fussed about it if he took a Sunday afternoon stroll down Fifth Ave with guns ablaze myself, so long as it was Enemedia “journalists” he was blasting at. In fact, I’d guess more than just a few of us would be happy to chip in on ammo if that were the case, so as to avoid any risk of his running dry while doing the Lord’s work.

That’s how awful, how utterly despicable these alleged “people” are. Their own burning hatred and contempt, for Trump and for every Real American alike, has flashed back to sear them so badly that real Americans are now perfectly willing to overlook a broadening spectrum of transgressions solely for the purpose of pointing and laughing when the smug, whiny pinheads get their panties all in a wad over it. Trump is Our Guy, period, and to hell with what the enemy might think or say. The more the libtards screech the better we like it, and the more we hope to see of it from our esteemed Preznit.

Ask yourselves why we hate you, pissants.

It’s like the moronic mandarins of the mainstream media – luminaries like Honest Dan Rather, Brian “Badass Like Buttigieg” Williams, and Zombie Cronkite – got together to create a plan to make people hate the media even more than they already did. It was a daunting challenge, since people view the mainstream media as something akin to syphilis without the upside. But it’s as if they finally succeeded, accomplishing, against all odds, something besides failure, leveraging this pandemic to destroy the media forever. The Chinese Coronavirus Bat Soup Syndrome has taken what’s left of the media’s reputation, poured gasoline on it, then lit it on fire before flattening it with a bulldozer and finally having a Scat Francisco hobo download last night’s free bologna sandwich on the remains.

This was the media’s time to shine, a moment when we needed clear, objective information delivered by intelligent people who asked the important questions people care about so Americans could protect themselves and their families. It was a critical juncture when the media could step up and show us all that yes, the media is still important. It still matters. It still deserves our respect.

Instead we got, “Mr. President, isn’t accurately pointing out that the coronavirus originated in China racist?”

Really.

That was a thing.

Pointing out that the Wuhan flu came from Wuhan is racist.

Yep. If there’s any silver lining to be found shining forth from the grim Chinese Flu dustup, Leftymedia’s most spectacular self-beclownment to date—along with the collateral damage they incur from it—would have to be it.

WORLD ENDS

Posted on March 20, 2020March 20, 2020 by Mike

Women, minorities, and…transgenders hardest hit?

Though medical facilities may soon become overtaxed for everyone, the coronavirus pandemic has shed light on how transgender people’s care can be treated as “non-essential.”

Quoth the Ace:

Well I think I have all the “light” I need on this matter. Their surgeries — butcheries, really — are absolutely “non-essential” and so, through a complex process called “calling things what they are,” have been deemed “non-essential.”

I know that the idea of calling things what they are is anathema to some.

Heh. Okay, back to the original turdball of an article.

For transgender and gender non-conforming people, gender-affirming surgeries are life-altering procedures, which, for many, can greatly reduce gender dysphoria and improve their quality of life.

Uh-huh—right up until they kill themselves, as is disproportionately their wont.

Annnnd that’ll be plenty enough of all that, I’m sure. Note that the link above is to Ace’s takedown, not to Vice’s execrable twaddle. You’re welcome.

Curioser and curioser

Posted on March 18, 2020March 18, 2020 by Mike

Willis Eschenbach examines what he calls the “Diamond Princess Mysteries.”

OK, here are my questions. We had a perfect petri-dish coronavirus disease (COVID-19) experiment with the cruise ship “Diamond Princess”. That’s the cruise ship that ended up in quarantine for a number of weeks after a number of people tested positive for the coronavirus. I got to wondering what the outcome of the experiment was.

So I dug around and found an analysis of the situation, with the catchy title of Estimating the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19 using age-adjusted data from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship (PDF), so I could see what the outcomes were.

As you might imagine, before they knew it was a problem, the epidemic raged on the ship, with infected crew members cooking and cleaning for the guests, people all eating together, close living quarters, lots of social interaction, and a generally older population. Seems like a perfect situation for an overwhelming majority of the passengers to become infected.

And despite that, some 83% (82.7% – 83.9%) of the passengers never got the disease at all…why?

Next, slightly less than half the passengers (48.6% ± 2.0%) who got the disease showed NO symptoms. If this disease is so dangerous, how come half the people who got it showed no symptoms at all?

For me, this is all good news. 83% of the people on the ship didn’t get it, despite perfect conditions for transmission. If you get it, you have about a 50/50 chance of showing no symptoms at all. And the fatality rate is lower than the earlier estimates of 2% or above.

At this point at least, it doesn’t appear that we are following the Italian trajectory. However…it’s still early days.

Finally, a plea for proportion. US coronavirus deaths are currently at 67, we’ll likely see ten times that number, 670 or so, might be a thousand or three…meanwhile, 3,100 people die in US traffic accidents…and that’s not 3,100 once in a decade, or 3,100 per year.

That’s 3,100 dead from auto accidents EACH AND EVERY MONTH…

It’s a mystery, right enough. There would seem to be angles aplenty to the whole Chinese Yellow Peril Fu Manchu Wuhan Sino-Flu story, but one of them worthy of at least a bare modicum of serious consideration is the possibility that we’re being played.

Update! With that abundance of odd angles I mentioned, it was a statistical near-certainty that at least one of them would turn out to be unintentionally hilarious.

Baltimore Mayor Begs Residents To Stop Shooting Each Other So Hospital Beds Can Be Used For Coronavirus Patients

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Baltimore Mayor Jack Young urged residents to put down their guns and heed orders to stay home after multiple people were shot Tuesday night amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

Young said hospital beds are needed to treat positive COVID-19 patients and not for senseless violence. Seven people were shot Tuesday night in the Madison Park neighborhood, as Baltimore reported its fifth positive coronavirus case Wednesday.

“I want to reiterate how completely unacceptable the level of violence is that we have seen recently,” Young said. “We will not stand for mass shootings and an increase in crime.”

“For those of you who want to continue to shoot and kill people of this city, we’re not going to tolerate it,” Young implored. “We’re going to come after you and we’re going to get you.”

Be a nice change of pace from standard practice there, I suppose. Shiny new gun-grabber proposal to be announced in 5…4…3…2…

Things that make you go “hmmm” update! My days of taking the coronavirus scare seriously are definitely coming to a middle.

Dark Money Progressive Groups Spending Millions to Politicize Coronavirus, Spread Fear

If Proggies fear it, I’m for it, no matter what it might be.

Oh please update! Anyone beginning to feel a tetch cynical about the coronavirus stampede just got handed another very good reason.

Wednesday on CNN, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the coronavirus pandemic was worse than both 9/11 and the 2008 stock market crash.

Schumer said, “I have lived through 9/11. I lost three friends that I knew in the towers. I was there through the crash of 2008, but this is the worst of all for a variety of reasons. First, we’re uncertain as to what is going to happen. There was some uncertainty after 9/11, in the days after we were worried we might be attacked again, but it’s not the same as this.”

It sure ain’t at that. For openers, there was no uncertainty whatsoever regarding who was responsible for 9/11 (Moslems), nor from whence the perps’ motive might have come (Islamic scripture). In fact, the only “uncertainty” I can think of is how the eventual Democrat-Socialist response—to import teeming, unvetted throngs of them here, get them signed up for welfare bennies in perpetuity, and then turn them loose to wage jihad here instead of there—ever came to be thought of, by anybody, as somehow a sensible thing to do.

Now THERE’S a mystery for ya. One for the ages.

Mo’ bettah update! Further and more erudite discussion at Silicon Greybeard, of which you should read the all, emphatically including the comments. Via Fran Porretto, who makes what remains, for me, the essential point.

Time was, no one would even entertain the possibility that an American political party would put power above the well-being of Americans generally. That time is long past.

The possibility that this is an engineered panic – a panic with the full weight of the Left and the media behind it – has been on many minds. As a weapon with which to hobble the American economy, few measures short of a nuclear bombing would have been more effective. But beyond that, a fearful people is a people easily subjugated. The effect is especially powerful when the thing feared is something against which individuals and communities cannot defend themselves.

You cannot see a virus.
You cannot shoot a virus, either.
Virus-caused diseases cannot be cured.
A virus of unknown potentialities is the perfect fear weapon.

But are the potentialities of the Wuhan virus really unknown? Silicon Graybeard’s article suggests otherwise, as do the dramatic differences among infection and fatality rates among the nations afflicted, according to their relative prosperity and whether their governments have socialized medical care. The United States, the most prosperous nation in history, with its free-market medical-care system, is overwhelmingly likely to come out of this “pandemic” almost unaffected, at least in comparison to other widespread diseases such as the common flu. Unaffected, that is, unless we surrender what remains of our freedom in response to political fear-mongering.

We could be doing ourselves immense, long-lasting harm for no good reason – and with Democrat mayors and governors leaping to act on Rahm Emanuel’s “wisdom,” the probability appears greater with every passing day and news cycle.

Whatever its origins, whatever its real effects, the coronavirus is now here. It will be with us always. No one can change that unwelcome reality. From this day forward, the principal thing we have a say over is what, and how much, we are willing to allow those with malign intent to take from us under false pretenses.

Perspective

Posted on March 17, 2020March 17, 2020 by Mike

Timeless wisdom from CS Lewis, shared with us by a Diplomad commenter.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

Smart fella, that CS Lewis.

NOT the Bee!

Posted on March 17, 2020March 17, 2020 by Mike

NOT. I swear to you, it’s NOT.

Isis issues coronavirus travel advice: terrorists should avoid Europe
The Isis terrorist group is steering clear of Europe because of the coronavirus. Having previously urged its supporters to attack European cities, the group is now advising members to “stay away from the land of the epidemic” in case they become infected.

The group has issued a new set of “sharia directives” that instruct followers to “cover their mouths when yawning and sneezing” and to wash their hands regularly. Isis militants have plenty of experience in covering their faces, though previously they did so to hide their identities when beheading hostages on camera.

No advice that I can see on what measures the monstrous ghouls might take in order to avoid being profligately doused from those great pools of their victims’ blood which they’re so enamored of wading around in. What the heck, though; anything that encourages the fiends to stay home where they damned well belong can’t be ALL bad…even if it’s a planet-killing pandemic.

Justice delayed is justice denied

Posted on March 16, 2020March 17, 2020 by Mike

Just do it, Mr Prez’nit, sir.

So now it is reported that, after destroying his life & the life of his wonderful family (and many others also), the FBI, working in conjunction with the Justice Department, has “lost” the records of General Michael Flynn. How convenient. I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2020

This can’t come soon enough. Who wouldn’t be outraged at public servants, with tremendous power over citizens’ freedom, being free to lose records as they please and still expect court systems to uphold their charges and recommendations? Incompetence fine for me, charges stick like glue to you?

It’s an absolute outrage that the FBI in this electronic age can “lose” a record at all. These people ought not to be able to file anything at all until all their notes are archived, documented, and backed up. That’s just basic. They’re required to follow the law, same as all the people they charge, and if they can’t keep a record, it’s time to punish them and throw each and every one of their claims in the trash. Keeping a record is basic; it dates back to the bureaucrats of the Egyptian papyrus era.

And here’s the real thing: nobody loses records like this anyway. What we are seeing is a cover-up. Got some records that make you look bad? Quick, lose them. How convenient to hide dishonesty.

I repeat: when all the “mistakes” conveniently cut in only one direction, to the detriment of only one side in a dispute, then they aren’t “mistakes” at all.

Backstory update! You’ll doubtless be shocked—SHOCKED!—at who’s behind the persecution of Flynn, and why.

The long suffering General Michael Flynn served briefly as President Trump’s National Security Advisor (NSA). In order to understand Flynn’s long legal journey over the last three years, one must be aware of the animosity President Obama and his top intelligence officials felt toward him.

Flynn had served as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during the Obama Administration from July 2012 to August 2014. Throughout his tenure, Flynn found himself strongly and frequently “at odds with the administration’s policies on ISIS and the Iran nuclear deal, among other things, which put him at odds with the Obama-friendly deep state.” Following his ouster, Flynn’s public remarks deepened the rift. For instance, in November 2015 during an appearance on Fox News, ” Flynn called for an investigation into the ISIS intel-skewing scandal, recommending that it “start right at the top.”

SHOCKING! as all that is, you’ll be even more SHOCKED! to see that Paragon Of Moral Virtue James Comey rears his ugly, ugly head, as do others of his fellow Klown Kar Koup conspirators. In sum:

Okay, boys, so tell us again why the government continued to prosecute Flynn. Solomon explains that U.S. District Judge Emmett Sullivan, who has presided over the case has “so far has concluded that the exoneration of Flynn on the Russia collusion charge wasn’t relevant to his conviction since he pled guilty to a different crime, making a false statement to the FBI.”

Not relevant? He lied to the FBI about a crime he didn’t commit?

Flynn was caught in a perjury trap. The FBI had been looking for a way to charge him with a crime. Although they would have preferred Russian collusion, they settled for lying to the FBI.

So, ten days into Trump’s presidency, the FBI knows that General Flynn did not collude with the Russians. Yet via leaks to the media, the most notable being The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, Americans were led to believe the opposite. Ignatius published excerpts from Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition and presented a “false storyline of Flynn as a Russian stooge was broadcasted across the nation.”

As Vaughan says, the WaPo leak was an actual, by-God felony—“the only serious crime to have emerged in the Russia investigation“, according to Deb Heine way back in 2018. The disgusting denouement:

Solomon spoke to Powell and was told the DOJ provided her with “three sentences from the DOJ memo.” Powell “has been unable to get the full document.”

Uncle Peter, my smelling salts!!

“It’s just horrible,” Powell said. “They gave us a little three line summary of it and the letter and told us it existed but have refused to give us the actual document, which I know means there’s a lot of other information in it that would be helpful to us.”

I’d say that one’s about as safe as assumptions ever come, yeah.

This isn’t the totality of what General Flynn has endured over the last three years, but it provides a good understanding of what Obama’s lieutenants set in motion at the end of his administration. The Mueller team continued the farce, finally forcing Flynn into pleading guilty to one charge of lying to the FBI.

If anyone deserves a pardon, it is this man, who served this country for 33 years. But, at this point, it would almost be better to force the holdovers from the Mueller team to answer for the missing documents and all of their lies.

Now now, methinks you might oughta embrace the healing power of “and” there, Miss Liz’beth; t’ain’t no reason it can’t be both, you know. In truth, it MUST be both, if even the most infinitesimal degree of faith and trust in American justice and the institutions charged with upholding it is ever to be restored. At the very, very least, though, Trump MUST pardon Flynn, sans condition or caveat, and let the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Left howl itself bloody-throated over it. They’re going to anyway, which by itself is confirmation that it’s the right thing to do.

Federalism: yer doin’ it wrong

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Mike

Actually, it’s not that they’re doing it wrong. It’s that they don’t have even the foggiest understanding of it to begin with.

10th amendment, you literally discovered the 10th amendment. https://t.co/d4dJESEpyU

— Serana Verina Mistress of AR-14s. (@UsagikoNat) March 16, 2020

More hilarious responses to this embarrassingly clueless Bulwark bint here. Another spectacular self-beclowning along the same lines:

I’m not the first person to make this observation but it truly is remarkable the degree to which local and state officials as well as private entities and businesses are making these massive public health policy decisions while the feds seem to be moving much more slowly.

— Sam Stein (@samstein) March 13, 2020

Which, y’know, is PRECISELY FUCKING WHY our Constitution was written and our federal gummint set up in the way that they originally were, you fucking moron. See, the Founders’ whole idea was that the closer to the people their government was, the more responsive, flexible, and accountable to them it would necessarily be, as opposed to having the nation entire dominated by an out-of-touch and out-of-reach central bureaucracy that…

Oh, for criminy’s sake, why am I bothering? I’m wasting my time, and annoying the pig.

Lordamighty, what are they even TEACHING in government schools nowadays, anyway? Anything? Anything at ALL?!?

Never mind. Best not to answer that one, I’m afraid.

NOTE: In case you didn’t already know, and there’s absolutely no reason that you should, the Bulwark is the perenially struggling, Lefty-financed vanity project of NeverTrumpTard Cruise Cap’n Bill “Ahoy there!” Kristol. Because Muh True Conservative Princibuls™ don’t care where the cash comes from.

A (doggie) breath of fresh air

Posted on March 14, 2020March 14, 2020 by Mike

Your Saturday night feel-gooder.

The best content you will see this weekend:

President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins' dog enters room of 100 people to look for his owner, walks through everyone to find him, is very happy to do so and demands a belly rub during an official eventpic.twitter.com/mKRxSc6w7P

— Matt Sterling (@MSterling27) March 8, 2020

Our four-legged companions care not a whit for the pretensions, protocols, and self-important affectations of us Hoomins—a sign of their superior wisdom and just plain good sense. Had Higgens reacted in any fashion other than the way he did, he shoulda been shot. At the very least, the dog should have been taken away from him and placed with someone who appreciates them, and understands how to properly treat them. Good on the guy for handling things correctly.

(Via Bill)

A brief explainer

Posted on March 13, 2020March 13, 2020 by Mike

Cpl-three weeks ago, Skeptic inquired:

Mike, why do you insist on using “Democrat Socialist” or “Socialist” as the descriptors? That is THEIR terminology. Call them what they are. Communists, Fascists, Totalitarians, Authoritarians. “Socialist” is merely the well marketed term for what they really are. I can understand retards like Ben Shapiro prattling on about “Socialism” as if he still thinks that term will dissuade anyone from voting D. I can’t understand YOU doing it.

Actually, I have a fair-to-half-decent reason for it. Some of you whippersnappers may not recall this, but see, way back in the days when Michael Steele was heading the RNC, this happened:

A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

Which pretty much sums up the attitude some members of the RNC have toward their chairman these days.

Steele wrote a memo last month opposing the resolution. Steele said that while he believes Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism,” he also said in a (rare) flash of insight that officially referring to them as the Democrat Socialist Party “will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans.”

Bold mine, to highlight the exact brand of hapless roll-overism that so perfectly characterized the pre-Trump GOP, and still does for all too much of it.

Umm, HELLOOO?!? What further “opportunity” for “the media and our opponents” to mischaracterize us might you think they need, pray tell, when the rat bastards are constantly not just “mischaracterizing” but outright lying through their fucking teeth about their hated enemies, brazenly and without shame, 24/7/365? That being so, and it most certainly was and is, why NOT start dealing out some minor payback to return the favor simply by calling the Demonrats by their rightful name?

At any rate, Steele eventually got the common-sense resolution advocating for labeling a spade a spade and a commie a commie dumped, more’s the pity. But I liked the idea then, and I still like it now. So I went right on using the thing, and Steele’s No-Ball Bastards just be damned all to Hell and gone. If I remember right, and I betcha I do, a lot of the fragile Loser GOPe punditry who so indignantly harrumphed and spluttered over the outlandish, gauche WELL-I-NEVER of referring to the Democommies at least somewhat accurately then went on to blossom into the insufferable NeverTrumpTards we endure today.

Go figure.

As for “socialist” being a too-tepid term for them…well, okay, so stipulated. On the other hand, though, I am waxing indifferent at best to such fine distinctions myself. Far as I’m concerned nowadays, a Marxist is a Commie is a socialist is a Nazi is a fascist is a &c. They’re all adjacent stripes running up and down the Left/Prog/whatever barber pole, in the end adding up to the selfsame thing: iron-fisted, comprehensive top-down rule by totalitarian despots. Slice it however you like, it’s still baloney.

My grandpa on my mom’s side was a lifelong yellow-dog Democrat, as was/is the entirety of that side of the fam. Milton Hubbard, bless his dear departed soul, died in 1976—too early in the year to enable him to cast a vote for Jimmeh Peanut, which he surely would have done with enormous pride. But I am quite confident that he is rolling in his grave rotisserie-style at around 750 RPMs from seeing what a sordid, anti-American sewer his beloved party has crashed and burned into—a party of traitors, bigots, degenerates, saboteurs, liars, cheap two-bit con artists, the mentally ill, and HILLARY!™ Clinton.

My mom’s baby brother Larry, another stubborn Yellow Dog thanks in no small part to the malign influence of his parents and older siblings, happily abandoned the Treasoncrats for Trump right around the time the Donald took his fateful escalator ride, although for some years I had noticed his commitment to the Democreeps gradually weakning, while he watched them continue the long slide into hundred-proof, no-chaser moonbattery. Uncle Larry’s late-life transition was akin to Reagan’s: he didn’t leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party left him. And boy, you should hear him talk about his former party NOW.

As well he might. This, after all, is a party that flies into spittle-flecked hysterics at the very idea of trying to “make America great again”; that reflexively sides with the enemy in every military conflict we’ve been involved in since Korea, no matter how truly monstrous that enemy may be; that is depressed rather than cheered by splendid economic news; that vastly prefers amplifying our shortcomings and failures over acknowledging our achievements and good works; that is this very minute hoping fervently that a viral pandemic will exterminate massive numbers of their (erstwhile) countrymen, for no better reason than that political advantage from those deaths might be gleaned for themselves.

Perhaps Skeptic is right after all, and my favored Democrat-Socialist appellation IS a spot of weak tea at this point. He most likely is, admittedly, in an era when they’re openly running unabashed Marxists, Red in tooth and claw, for the nation’s highest elected offices. Better get cracking on finding something worse still to fling at those suppurating pustules, I reckon. Suggestions along those lines from all and sundry are more than welcome, natch. Meanwhile, I’ll just carry on as I have been.

How golf became FASCINATING

Posted on March 12, 2020March 12, 2020 by Mike

Never cared a thing about the game, neither playing nor watching, although the same uncle who taught me to play guitar was a complete fanatic. Strangely, though, I suddenly find my interest…piqued, shall we say.

Golfer Paige Spiranac, 26, reveals she has been accused of ‘ruining the sport’ by flaunting her CLEAVAGE in low-cut tank tops – and complains that she is treated like an outsider for being ‘real’

Oh, she’s real, all right. And spectacular.

American golfer Paige Spiranac says she has been accused of ‘ruining the game’ because she wears low-cut tank tops that show off her cleavage.

The 26-year-old has 2.2 million Instagram followers and also hosts the Playing A Round Podcast, and in a recent episode she complained about how she is treated because of the way she looks and dresses.

‘I wear a tank top and I’m the s’** and I’m the w**** and I’m the one that’s ruining the game,’ she said.

It’s not that her outfit choices have stopped her from playing. Paige played at the University of Arizona and San Diego State University, and even won All-Mountain West Conference honors during two seasons.

She’s also relayed her success and social media following into sponsorship deals.

But it’s cost her in other ways. She said that recently, she wanted to help out with a charity that gave kids free golf clubs but was turned down.

Why, the dirty bastards. Here’s what the bluenoses are all aghast at:

Lest anybody assume this awesomely well-put-together exemplar of feminine pulchritude is all looks and no talent, just check this vid, wherein she demonstrates some mad club-wielding skillz in her own, uhhh, distinctive fashion:

Awright, awright, I admit it: I was perhaps a wee mite more captivated by the mad fun-bag-juggling skills also displayed therein.

All kidding around aside, God has seen fit to bless this young woman bounteously indeed: she has extraordinary good looks and athletic ability, and seems to be personable, self-assured, and generally well-adjusted to boot. Her physical gifts may make her a poor fit for the staid, conservative climes of professional golf, but if the USLPG Powers That Be could loosen up a bit, seems to me they just might find themselves sitting atop a real PR goldmine with Paige.

Hats off to Ace, bless his heart, for one helluva find.

Can’t close

Posted on March 12, 2020March 12, 2020 by Mike

Red Bernie might just be the first Commie ever without a killer instinct.

To modify T S Eliot in “The Hollow Men” (whose theme seems not inappropriate), this is the way the world ends, not with a Bern but a whimper. As I said on Rush the morning after Super Tuesday, Senator Sanders blew the 2016 election with a single line – his crotchetty insistence to Mrs Clinton that he was “sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails”. That told Hillary that he wouldn’t go after her on the subject of her corruption and lawlessness. Which in turn told Hillary that Bernie wasn’t serious.

And so it proved.

Four years later, he was now, I said on the radio, making the same mistake again – in a pitiful Super Tuesday speech too gutless to mention Joe Biden by name. If he didn’t butch up before Michigan, he’d be over. That means not oblique references to unspecified candidates whose positions on Social Security and 2008 bailouts he disagrees with, but clobbering Biden by name on a) his decades-long corruption; and b) his more recent but increasingly obvious cognitive impairment. Only if a Democrat makes either an issue will the court eunuchs of the American media be obliged to cover it. Absent that, in the post-Iowa/New Hampshire avalanche of primaries, people vote on a vague recollection of Joe Biden from fifteen years back, when, by comparison with a Castroite crank flapping his arms around, he seemed “likeable” – or, in the dreary clichés of presidential politics, the candidate you’d enjoy sharing a beer with – even if Joe had no idea he was sharing a beer with you and was convinced he was sharing a margarita with Esther Williams and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Bernie blew it. The closest he got was tiptoeing up to the issue by noting that, while he himself was out there giving hour-long speeches, Biden’s were now down to seven minutes. If you’re paying attention, you kinda sorta know what he’s hinting at, even if trumpeting the charms of a stump speech eight times longer than your opponent isn’t the most persuasive way to sell it.

But again he needed to say it, and he didn’t. America’s Castro turns out to be not a real revolutionary, just a Vermont weekending flatlander of a revolutionary, a Ben & Jerry’s novelty ice-cream flavor of the real thing – Stalinist Swirl, Beria Blast, The Choctober Revolution, Hammer & Brickle…

What a joke.

It is that. Although I still say he’s the only one under the Democrat-Socialist Big Top with any real chance at unseating Trump, for what little that’s now worth. And I also maintain that the mere fact that we now have a bona fide Marxist running for a major-party nomination for POTUS speaks dismal, depressing volumes about where we are as a nation, regardless of how the 2020 race turns out.

Unheard of update! Brace yourselves, folks, for I am about to do something quite rare around these parts nowadays: link to and excerpt a piece from NRO.

The summer that my parents spared me a life in some soul-sucking collectivist factory—and Hungary wasn’t the worst nation in the Eastern Bloc at the time; there were no mass arrests, no gulags, just economic inertia and a tedious low-grade authoritarianism—Bernie Sanders was role-playing a Trotskyite in his class war against the Lumpenproletariat and kulaks of Burlington, Vt.

There’s no record of the future mayor of that prosperous city ever defending the brave men and women of the Prague Spring—why would he, after all?—though he did find the time to publicly admire the Vietcong, a group responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Bernie would make apologizing for Communists a lifelong endeavor. You’ll forgive me if I take it personally.

Anyway, by 1969, my father, trained as a chemist but unable to find work in that field, began his new life packing bags in a warehouse while my pregnant mother assembled beads for which she was paid by the bracelet. But not for long. I doubt either of them was aware that in the United States a red-diaper baby could move to New England and become a professional revolutionary, never having to really work a day in his life. And I’m positive that the prospect of such a life would have chafed their newly adopted sensibilities.

I’ve never met anyone who has escaped Communism—not from Cuba or China or Hungary or Ethiopia—who had any interest in living on the dole. Now, perhaps not everyone is as hard-working or as lucky as my parents—and, of course, chance plays its part in everyone’s life. But when socialists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mock and dismiss the notion of Americans’ “lifting themselves up by a bootstrap,” they are no longer pressing some liberal case for equality, they are embracing an un-American notion. They are trolling for victims. Victims of religion. Of industry. Of race. Of circumstance. Of history. Once socialists have convinced an entire generation they’re victims, there is no way back.

Fortunately, my emotional detestation of collectivism comports perfectly with my intellectual detestation of Bernie’s movement. Capitalism saves the victims that socialism produces. Nothing achieved under socialism can’t be achieved under capitalism—other than perhaps inducing perfectly healthy people from a beautiful island to get on rickety homemade rafts and try to traverse the Caribbean to move to Florida. And yet, here we are. Again.

The way we treat Bernie, as a crank or well-meaning left-winger, is itself a way to normalize Marxism—“democratic socialism,” in this iteration. We would never treat any other similarly destructive ideology with the same nonchalance. For me, it’s nearly unfathomable to accept that my parents—and thousands of others who gave up their friends and families to come to this meritocratic nation—would ever have as their president a socialist who praised the Soviet Union.

Happy warriors shouldn’t take politics too personally. When it comes to Marxists, and I have no doubt Bernie is one, I make an exception. I take history too seriously not to.

When it comes to Marxists, there’s no real necessity to bother about being “happy warriors” anyway. All we need to be is warriors, period. There’ll be plenty of time to get happy after the war has been won…and precious little happiness to be had if it’s lost.

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