Flotsam and/or Jetsam

New read!

Posted on March 11, 2020March 11, 2020 by Mike

Our highly esteemed boozum chum Francis, a truly gifted writer as you’re all surely aware by now, would like everyone to know that he has a new one out:

More a fantasy tome than straight-up sci-fi, I’m thinking, if the cover and blurb are at all indicative:

Gregor of Serebal, a journeyman sorcerer educated at the Scholium Arcanum in the East, is on a cross-continent trek through the Great Waste: the lifeless desert left by the Dieback that all but eliminated life from Aeol. He has been tasked to chart the courses of the major mana conduits of the continent. In the process he discovers that they have been diverted from their normal paths: Whereas they once flowed from north to south, they now flow from east to west. While there is no obvious explanation for their diversion, they appear to flow directly toward Pontreval, where the Scholium Arcanum in the West is situated.

Laella of Anam is a gifted one: a potential sorcerer not yet trained to the disciplines that would make it safe to practice. Yet the mana has already touched her to ill effect. It has made her a virgin mother, to the horror of her family and neighbors. The ruler of her village has executed her infant son, and the infant children of three other women similarly afflicted, when Gregor arrives in Anam.

Mutual admiration brings them together. Once mated, they travel further west through the Great Waste in pursuit of Gregor’s errand. But though his intent was to walk all the way across the continent, charting the mana streams as he traveled, events will force them to return to Urel, the site of the Scholium Arcanum in the East where Gregor was made an initiate of the Arcana. There he and Laella will confront mysteries the sorcerers of the Scholium cannot unravel. Beneath those mysteries lies a threat to the life of Aeol that will demand all that Gregor, Laella, and their colleagues have to give.

Fantasy or sci-fi, doesn’t matter; with Porretto, any and all genres are in most capable hands. The tariff is but a paltry 2.99 at Amazon, peoples, so hie thee thither. He also has a mention up over at his joint, which opens thusly:

Here it is at last: the long awaited fantasy novel by the foremost storyteller of our time…

(What’s that you say? I’m not the foremost storyteller of our time? Geez, what a letdown! Could you keep it to yourself until I sell a few books? Thanks.)

Heh. Pas de sweat, Fran, we’ll keep it strictly on the down-low over here.

How it’s DONE

Posted on March 10, 2020March 10, 2020 by Mike

Greece nuts the fuck up.

The situation in the no-mans-land between Turkey and Greece is becoming increasingly more violent and desperate for the refugees. Reporters on a tour heard gunshots despite the Greek government denying the use of anything except tear gas to stop the refugees.

Daily Beast:

For over an hour, the sound of people trying to direct each other in multiple languages through farms, woodlands, and across riverbanks was punctuated by shots. First it sounded like single rifle blasts, then came bursts of three, and then longer, heavier automatic fire.

Encouraging, and way overdue. Greek officials, when confronted by wailing “journalists” and other hanky-soaking globalist cunts claiming to have heard gunfire, blithely responded No you didn’t.

However, when Papastathis appeared on Wednesday afternoon to direct us to the new location, he denied absolutely that we had heard what we heard.

“Only tear gas is being fired,” he insisted to a group of a dozen journalists on the tracks.

Turkey accused Greece of killing a Syrian man and wounding five other people.

My heart bleeds. Maybe shoulda stayed the fuck home then, no?

Fuck the goddamned treacherous Turks and their accusations all to hell and gone, by the way. The rationale for their even being in NATO at all escapes me completely. Then again, I feel the exact same way about the US, too.

The next day footage of Greek soldiers apparently firing in the direction of migrants on the border surfaced online. And more signs of the Greeks using live fire on migrants and asylum seekers could be found at a makeshift camp for people waiting to cross the Evros River near the Turkish city of Edirne.

As encouraging as the Greek gubmint’s properly hardnosed response to the de facto invasion of their nation by predatory Moslem rapefugees and perpetual dependents surely is, this next is even more so:

Greece is becoming more and more desperate to stop what has to be considered a Turkish-inspired invasion of its territory. And since the government has been ineffective, armed private citizens have taken matters into their own hands.

The BBC has encountered members of self-styled militias who carry out night-time armed patrols in Greek border towns looking for migrants.

“There are such militia along the entire region,” said Yannis Laskarakis, a newspaper publisher in the city of Alexandroupoli who has received death threats for speaking out against armed vigilantes.

“We have seen them with our own eyes, arresting migrants, treating them badly and if someone dares to help them, he has the same fate.”

And the vigilantes aren’t only going after refugees. Aid workers and the press have also been assaulted.

I bolded the best part so’s you wouldn’t miss it. Elsewhere, the Telegraph gets busy trotting out the usual boogeyman:

On Lesbos, young men have targeted reporters and NGOs because they perceive them as being sympathetic to the refugees’ plight.

It is not clear if they are local or outsiders from the mainland, possibly connected to far-Right organisations.

On Friday there were reports that members of German and Austrian far-Right groups had arrived on the island.

Yeh, yeh, whatevs. Moran deftly slices and dices that hooraw:

I doubt whether a lot of these simple Greek villagers are members of a far-right organization. Their motivations are simple; their families are at risk and their property is being invaded by foreigners. For them, there are no grand geopolitical issues involved. They are protecting theirs and their own from harm.

But with the rest of the EU cheerleading from the sidelines — while not lifting a finger to help except to open their wallets — Greece finds itself alone and facing a potential onslaught of 100,000 people.

Doesn’t matter a damned bit whether they’re “far-Right” or not; I’d bet the farm that none of those militia types give a shit about any of that, either. Let liberal “journalists” clang the “far-Right” tocsin to their hearts’ content; there is but one issue that matters here: when a national government fails to meet its most basic obligations—securing its borders, maintaining its sovereignty, and defending its citizens—then eventually its citizens will take matters into their own hands.

Nobody is obliged to sit passively back as hostile marauders invade their country, rain violence and destruction on its people, assault its culture and institutions, soak up its resources, and just generally run riot through the place. However complacent, peaceable, or over-civilized a population may be, sooner or later enough finally becomes enough. Then the lamp is lit, the ball has dropped, and it’s game on for reals.

Somebody really ought to give our own Democrat-Socialists a strongish heads-up about that lest they someday find their own precious butts caught in the blades, for some very similar reasons.

The point of the Happy Ending

Posted on March 6, 2020March 6, 2020 by Mike

Well, I mean, DUH.

Bill Clinton waves off his tawdry affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky in a new documentary — by saying it was something he did “to manage my anxiety.”

The ex-president, in the upcoming Hulu series “Hillary” about his wife, likens working in the Oval Office to being a boxer “staggering” around after a 15-round prize fight that’s been extended to 30-rounds.

“And here’s something that’ll take your mind off it for a while,” Clinton, 73, says of his two-year tryst with Lewinsky that began in 1995 when she was 22.

Forgive me for asking a perhaps too-obvious question here and all, but aren’t stress relief, anxiety reduction, and release from tension all pretty well-known benefits of ripping yourself off a piece of tail now and then? Of course, as notorious and constant a quim-chaser as the Creep always has been, that lame explanation for his scurrilous behavior probably ain’t gonna cut a whole lot of ice with anybody, I’d bet. But this next offhand remark is likely to cause him a whole lot worse trouble:

Episode three of the one-sided, four-part biography series about Hillary Clinton — which premieres Friday — focuses on the sordid, 25-year-old affair that almost ended Clinton’s presidency and dogged his wife throughout her own political career.

Titled “The Hardest Decision,” the episode leads with footage from the 2016 campaign in which President Trump talks about the scandalous liaison, calling Hillary “an enabler.”

Oof. Better keep checking six from now on, Bill, lest…well, you know. Meanwhile, Her Herness staunchly maintains the ongoing effort to rewrite history via misdirection:

“He shouldn’t have done what he did, he shouldn’t have tried to hide it, but it was not an impeachable offense,” says Hillary, who was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff that advised the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate.

And he WASN’T impeached for it. He was impeached for lying about it under oath, you conniving shrew. Which he most certainly DID, repeatedly. He was also charged with obstruction of justice for the crime of suborning perjury from Lewinski and Linda Tripp, and was manifestly guilty of those as well.

Nice try and all, though.

Civility now not!

Posted on March 6, 2020March 6, 2020 by Mike

Hate speech and explicit threats of violence from “statesmen” Chuckles Schemer.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to face censorship for threatening Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

Schumer is facing backlash after he issued a threat to the two justices as the high court readies itself to rule on cases relating to abortion regulation.

“I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer, 69, said Wednesday at a rally for abortion rights. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Schooomer naturally lied his ass off trying to walk his hateful blunder back once he was called out on it, but Cruz ain’t having any:

“That is an unambiguous threat. Now, whether it’s a threat of political retribution, or something even worse, that’s not clear. But whatever it is, it’s judicial intimidation,” Cruz said, adding that he believes the comments are unacceptable. “The Senate should seriously consider taking disciplinary steps. When you have the leader of one of the two parties going to the steps of the Supreme Court, threatening and trying to intimidate Supreme Court justices, that undermines the rule of law, it undermines the judiciary, and it’s just flat-out wrong.”

Ahh, but you’re missing something, Ted: vile Democrat-Socialist creatures such as Schemer give not a single shit about such arcane irrelevancies as the rule of law, and never have. Sefton reminds us that it’s certainly nothing new:

What’s equally sickening is the moral equivalency in claiming Schemer was merely responding to Trump’s “attacks” on the Wide-Load Wiseass Latina and Ruth Bader Meinhoff. Ridiculous on the face of it since Trump was responding to attacks on him and his response was both non-threatening as well as appropriate, given both of their open animosity and vitriol of the President and his administration. The blowing way past the red line of Schemer’s statement, at least from my recollection and knowledge of historical criticism of SCOTUS, is unprecedented but it’s not unique. You’ll recall Obama’s thinly veiled threat and rebuke of the court, specifically aimed at the time at Justice Samuel Alito at a State of the Union address and when before the last foul word left his mouth, Schemer leapt to his feet, clapping like a retarded seal.

So what’s going on here? Is this a deranged reaction to being helpless as one of the Left’s sacraments, baby-killing dressed in drag as women’s health and freedom of choice potentially smashed like the golden calf? Or is it the totality of their complete failure at taking out President Trump hitting them square in the face? Whatever is going on, the words coming not from some unhinged troll in his parent’s basement but from political and cultural (allegedly) leaders have chilling and in many cases deadly effects, as we have seen now time and time again. That said, I am no fan of Laurence Tribe but I applaud his unequivocal rebuke of Schemer, who is a longtime friend and fellow traveler, and defense of what is supposed to be an independent court that is due the deference and respect of the other branches. But it’s the same old story. The Left observes the laws, traditions and customs of America as founded only when it advances their cause, and that’s virtually never. Other times it uses the Constitution as both a shield and cudgel to defend and attack us. That is, when they’re not wiping their ass with it.

Even mild-mannered Yertle McTurtle blasted the pernicious reprobate:

THE MINORITY LEADER OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE THREATENED TWO ASSOCIATE JUSTICES OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT, PERIOD. THERE’S NO OTHER WAY TO INTERPRET THAT. EVEN WORSE, THE THREAT WAS NOT CLEARLY POLITICAL OR INSTITUTIONAL. AS I’LL DISCUSS IN A MOMENT, THESE KINDS OF THREATS ARE SADLY NOTHING NEW FROM SENATE DEMOCRATS. THIS WAS MUCH BROADER, MUCH BROADER. THE DEMOCRATIC LEADER TRAVELED TO THE WORKPLACE OF THE TWO JUDGES, AND IN FRONT OF A CROWD OF ACTIVISTS, HE TOLD THOSE JUDGES YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SUPREME COURT BUILDING. AND YOU WON’T KNOW WHAT HIT YOU, HE SAID, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE SUPREME COURT BUILDING. IF ANY AMERICAN HAD THESE WORDS SHOUTED AT THEM FROM THE SIDEWALK OUTSIDE THEIR OFFICE, THEY WOULD HEAR THOSE THREATS AS PERSONAL. AND MOST LIKELY THEY WOULD HEAR THEM AS THREATENING OR INCITING VIOLENCE. THAT’S HOW ANY AMERICAN WOULD INTERPRET THOSE WORDS IF THEY WERE DIRECTED AT US, AND THAT’S CERTAINLY HOW THE PRESS AND LEADING DEMOCRATS WOULD HAVE CHARACTERIZED THEM IF PRESIDENT TRUMP OR ANY SENIOR REPUBLICAN HAD SAID ANYTHING REMOTELY, REMOTELY SIMILAR. WE’VE SEEN MUCH MORE HAY MADE OUT OF MUCH LESS.

PERHAPS OUR COLLEAGUE THINKS THIS IS ABSURD. PERHAPS HE WOULD LIKE THE MOST GENEROUS POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION THAT HE GOT CARRIED AWAY AND DIDN’T MEAN WHAT HE SAID. BUT IF HE DIDN’T EVEN ADMIT TO SAYING WHAT HE SAID, WE CERTAINLY CANNOT KNOW WHAT HE MEANT. AT THE VERY BEST, HIS COMMENTS WERE ASTONISHINGLY, ASTONISHINGLY RECKLESS AND SUPPLEMENTAL IRRESPONSIBLE, AND CLEARLY, AS THE CHIEF JUSTICE STATED IN A RARE AND EXTRAORDINARY REBUKE, THEY WERE, QUOTE, DANGEROUS, END QUOTE. BECAUSE NO MATTER THE INTENTION, WORDS CARRYING THE APPARENT THREAT OF VIOLENCE CAN HAVE HORRIFIC UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.

IN THE MOST RECENT YEAR ON RECORD, MADAM PRESIDENT, THE UNITED STATES MARSHAL SERVICE TRACKED THOUSANDS OF THREATS AND INAPPROPRIATE COMMUTATIONS AGAINST THE JUDICIARY. THOUSANDS OF THREATS AGAINST THE JUDICIARY. LESS THAN THREE YEARS AGO, OF COURSE, AN UNHINGED AND UNSTABLE LEFT-WING ACTIVIST ATTEMPTED A MASS MURDER OF CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS AT A BASEBALL FIELD RIGHT ACROSS THE RIVER.

A SENATE LEADER APPEARING TO THREATEN OR INCITE VIOLENCE ON THE STEPS OF THE SUPREME COURT COULD LITERALLY BE A MATTER OF DEADLY SERIOUSNESS. SO I FULLY ANTICIPATE OUR COLLEAGUE WOULD QUICKLY WITHDRAW HIS COMMENTS AND APOLOGIZE. THAT’S WHAT EVEN RELIABLY LIBERAL LEGAL EXPERTS LIKE LAURENCE TRIBE AND NEIL KAGEL HAVE PUBLICLY URGED. INSTEAD, OUR COLLEAGUE DOUBLED DOWN, DOUBLED DOWN. HE TRIED TO GASLIGHT THE ENTIRE COUNTRY AND STATED THAT HE WAS ACTUALLY THREATENING FELLOW SENATORS, AS THOUGH THAT WOULD BE MUCH BETTER. BUT THAT’S SUFFICIENT.

AND THEN A FEW HOURS LATER, THE DEMOCRATIC LEADER TRIPLED DOWN. INSTEAD OF TAKING CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS’ SOBER STATEMENT TO HEART, HE LASHED OUT AGAIN AND TRIED TO IMPLY THE CHIEF JUSTICE WAS BIASED, BIASED FOR DOING HIS JOB AND DEFENDING THE COURT. LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN. HE TRIPLED DOWN AND HE LASHED OUT YET AGAIN…

Because of course he did. Question now is: will he get away with it, as he so clearly assumes? As so many other bloodthirsty, lawless Leftists already have?

Official censure is the mildest reprimand Chuckie Crazy Eyes ought to get. As a dangerously unhinged lunatic, he has clearly forgotten he’s a member of what was originally conceived as the more sober, reflective, and judicious branch of Congress. The crooked, power-drunk son of a bitch ought to be forcibly removed from the office he’s besmirched and degraded for so many long years—perp-walked out rockin’ a pair of those fancy chrome bracelets, with a burly, stone-faced US Marshall on each flank to prod him along.

Lessons from The Hunt For Red October

Posted on March 6, 2020March 6, 2020 by Mike

There’s way more than just one or two.

Thirty years ago this month, “The Hunt For Red October” was released in the United States. The film is important because it taught my generation a truth known well by our parents and our grandparents: It is virtually impossible to screw up a submarine movie.

Is it heightened drama born of salty submariners jammed into the confined space of control rooms “rigged for red”? The simultaneous dangers of fire and water, burning and drowning, explosion and implosion? The terrifying suspense of depth-charge attacks? Yes, yes and yes!

But the genre’s advantages alone cannot explain the staying power of “The Hunt For Red October”. The truth is, the movie taught Generation X, my generation, so much more. As befits a submarine movie, we must go deeper when considering what makes the film so special, even after 30 years.

Kerrigan dives deep (a-HEHN!) into this truly classic flick with a quick plot recap, enthusiastic critiques of various technical aspects of the film, and such-like. But for me the most important Red October takeaway, especially in these parlous times, will always be this:

Words to remember.

(Via Insty)

It’s the rigid, authoritarian ideology, stupid

Posted on March 4, 2020March 4, 2020 by Mike

Fitzgerald famously wrote, “The rich are different from you or I.” To which I’ll add: so is the Third World.

As I watched my neighbor put her dog’s poop in a single-use plastic baggy, I thought about split pants in China.

When my wife and I got off the plane, 18 years ago, to adopt our first daughter, we were taken aback by the split pants. Split pants are (or at least were, back then) pants the children wear that are open in the crotch area. That allows them to urinate or defecate unobstructed, onto the street or wherever they may be. The theory is that eventually they will learn to “aim it at the toilet” or something to that effect.

Either way, I distinctly remember my brand new Nike slip-ons (probably made not far from where I was standing) sloshing into a mix of urine and who knows what else, and continuing to do so for the next three weeks.

As I started feeling the cough coming on, I remember one of the women in our group saying, at one of the airports (as she too, stepped into urine) “The people in this country probably have built up antibodies inside them our bodies have never even thought about.”
I replayed that line in my head for the next three weeks, as I descended into night sweats, fevers and a cough like I’ve never experienced.

Over the next several days and weeks, we would experience the amazing culture of China, in several different cities. But some things stood out to this germophobic American. I watched a man hock up something from his chest and spit it on the floor, right next to us, in a restaurant. No oysters for me, thanks. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.

We visited a Hutong (inner city – where the locals live) and saw raw chickens, skinned and bleeding, just laying on the floor, waiting to be thrown on a restaurant grill…for public consumption. No FDA or USDA or food inspectors or “codes” to comply with, here. But why? This is the last purely communist country on earth. You’d think there would be red tape everywhere. What was happening here?

When I lived on East Broadway, right off of Canal Street cheek-by-jowl with Chinatown proper, I well remember walking through the area astonished and disgusted by the routine early-AM spectacle of Chinese restaurant personnel dumping great piles of raw, peeled shrimp onto the filthy sewer grates betwixt sidewalk and street, hosing them down briefly, scooping them up, and then hauling the “cleaned” shellfish back into the kitchen to be cooked and served. There was a similar scandal right here in Charlotte back in the mid-80s involving a now-defunct but once quite well-regarded and established Chinese joint caught using a similar process, with the kitchen floor-drain in place of sewer grates.

So after having to rush his young child to an equally revolting Chinese hospital, it dawned on the writer of the above excerpt that the problem he’s talking about isn’t so much a matter of Turd-World “backwardness” or even ethnicity. No, this is all due to something far more insidious and difficult to fix:

I was witnessing the kind of maximum, almost brutal efficiency a society must develop when the state is the master and the individual is merely a subject. Why would a Communist country not have an effective FDA? Because who are you going to complain to if you get tainted food? The government? They don’t answer to you. The press? They are owned by the government. And again, they don’t answer to you.

So what if you don’t like the conditions in the hospital? Where else are you going to go? This hospital is the last (and only) stop. You can’t opt for another place and then just pay out of your own pocket. The government has capped financial upward mobility. There is now “income equality.” And that means nobody has the means to buy their way into a different (or better) situation. And even if you could, one doesn’t exist. The state provides it all. You’re stuck.

That’s the whole idea; you’re much easier to control that way, see. To rule.

He goes on to address the issues in some depth, concluding thusly:

As for me, I’ve seen what happens when the choices are taken away. And what happens ends up being a place where new viruses can spread too easily, to too many people, and aren’t contained quickly enough.

There’s been plenty of discussion concerning the difficulty of getting any reliable numbers or other information on the COVID-19 outbreak from ChiCom officialdom, which is usually attributed to the deceptive and secretive traits common to all Commie dictatorships. Okay, fair enough. But consider this as well: how likely is it that the Chinese government itself has all the facts in hand?

My guess is, not at all.

See, Communist dictatorships one and all basically run on lies. Lies are a Commie shitrapy’s bread and butter, its lifeblood, the fuel that keeps the machine struggling and staggering feebly along. Deception is by no means disseminated exclusively from the top down, only by government officials, to placate the workers. It is also disseminated from the bottom up. The factory worker responds to his immediate supervisor’s weekly query about productivity; the worker avoids punishment for failing to meet the quota handed down to from On High by exaggerating his output. His supervisor reports the bogus numbers on up the line to his own superiors, maybe inflating them a bit more so as to score a few points of his own. This process of fudging, distortion, and deceit works its way to the bureau chiefs, the directorate heads, and right on up to the top of the pyramid.

And that’s how you wind up with those cheerful state-media “journalists” enthusiastically reporting the GREAT NEWS of record-setting crop yields, glowing economic numbers, astonishing advances in science and technology, total military invincibility, and universal happiness, optimism, and patriotic fervor amongst the Proles—not a word of it true, or even close to true. It’s not so much that the government is lying; it’s that EVERYDAMNEDBODY is lying, to everybody else, and all for the same reason. Under Communism, so much bogus information gets passed around, purely as a matter of self-presevervation, that NOBODY knows what’s really going on. And there’s no way for anybody to find out.

Reality can be harsh sometimes. It can be tough to get your head around, to confront honestly, to accept gracefully. But only in Marxist hellholes is it literally hazardous to your health.

Systemic dishonesty is a bastard stepchild of rigid top-down control, a congenital defect both unavoidable and incurable. How could it be otherwise? The core of Communism itself is dishonesty (or delusion, if one wants to be overly charitable); could any Communist system ever be free of it?

Anyways, it’s a damned excellent piece, of which you should read the all.

I don’t want to live in a world without a Weinermobile in it

Posted on March 3, 2020March 3, 2020 by Mike

I swear, folks, I have this nagging recollection of having seen a most disturbing story someplace or other claiming that Oscar Mayer was doing away with its fabled fleet of Weinermobiles. Naturally, I was aghast at the grievous blow to classic Americana such a cancellation would represent. Worse still, though, is that in today’s PC nightmare it isn’t at all hard to imagine it happening. I’m quite sure that the “waste and excess” of it; the damage to Gaia from CO2 emissions and fossil-fuel usage; the safety hazards created by having these large, unwieldy vehicles lumbering across the nation, etc etc etc have made for some real headaches for Oscar Mayer in recent years.

The steady stream of protests, whining, and threats of violence doubtless endured by the fine folks at Oscar Mayer for this horrid display of callousness, reckless disregard, and bad stewardship would no doubt make deciding to just say to hell with it pretty much a no-brainer for at least some of the OM suits. Thankfully, however, I looked around some and could find no confirmation of my admittedly vague memory, nor even a hint of such. Eventually I ended up stubling across the very font of all things Weinermobile: Oscar Mayer’s own Weinermobile website, which is a laff riot. That happy sojourn led to further wanderings, which wound up providing all the excuse I’ll ever need to commend y’all’s attention to this treasure trove of fun facts. A sampling:

1940 Wienermobile:
The 1940’s Wienermobile was a bit smaller than the 1930’s model and featured a small pod on top for the driver as well as a hatch at the very rear for the ‘world’s tiniest chef’ to poke out of.

Wienermobile Specifications, 1940: Builder: General Body Company of Chicago, Illinois
 Cost: $5,000
 Bells and Whistles: 13 feet of metal in the shape of an Oscar Mayer Wiener, open cockpits in center and rear of vehicle

Yes, of COURSE they have pictures. But alas, all is not perpetual sunshine and lightness of heart; even in Weinerville, trouble can rear its ugly head now and then.

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile pulled over for being a road hog
The Wienermobile just got a good grilling — from cops.

The famous Oscar Mayer marketing vehicle was stopped Sunday for hot-dogging on a road in Wisconsin, deputies in Waukesha County said.

The department seemed to relish the bust in a Facebook post.

“What really happened on that fateful day with the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile?” the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department said Monday. “The driver of the #Wienermobile was stopped and given a verbal warning by a Waukesha County Sheriff’s Deputy for not following the Move Over Law.”

The law requires drivers to move over a lane if they see emergency vehicles on the side of the road with their lights on — and the rule applies even to the operators of Wienermobiles.

God bless the Weinermobile, I say. May it grace our cultural landscape forever, to go on roaming America’s great highways and byways to bring a smile, a laugh, or simply a quick, delicious lunch to all people of good will everywhere.

Buddy Mercury sings!

Posted on March 2, 2020March 2, 2020 by Mike

I dunno, could be I’m wrong here, but in my opinion he’s the greatest Vegas lounge crooner since Sammy Davis Jr.

Might there be an album available on iTunes, you ask? Why, yes. Yes, there is: Buddy Mercury Sings the Blues! The cover alone is worth the price of admission. If your interest is piqued and you’re just dying for a bigger dose of Buddy’s distinctive stylistic artistry—which I know it is, and you are—Ace has several more video recordings of Buddy wailin’ away over at his joint.

Sign o’ the times

Posted on February 29, 2020February 29, 2020 by Mike

The Long March continues.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The U.S. Air Force changed lyrics in its service anthem by dropping gender references that exclude women.

The change announced Thursday by the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. David Goldfein, is designed to make the service friendlier to women, The Gazette reports.

“Our song must reflect our history, the inspiring service and accomplishments of all who’ve served, and the rich diversity that makes today’s Air Force indisputably the strongest and most capable in the world,” Goldfein wrote in a message to airmen, cadets and academy alumni.

The change originated when female Air Force Academy cadets asked Goldfein why the anthem’s third verse hailed the bravery of men, but not women.

The third verse is meaningful to cadets at the academy near Colorado Springs, where it is sung after sports victories, but students took issue with the third line: “To a friend we send a message of his brother men who fly.”

In the new version, the line is changed to read, “To a friend we send a message of the brave who serve on high.”

Other gender references in the song remain, including “at ’em boys, give ‘er the gun.”

My first thought was to vent some spleen over this trite silliness, but then I realized how very difficult it’s becoming to even give a shit at all these days.

Blago gets some

Posted on February 28, 2020February 28, 2020 by Mike

A shiv for Barky.

Convicted former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich went on Fox News in his first post-release interview and held very little back about Barack Obama’s involvement in the scandal that put him in prison, while the first black president was never held accountable.

Appearing on “Watters’ World” with Jesse Watters, Blagojevich was quickly asked about the 2008 Senate-seat-for-sale scandal, in which Blagojevich had negotiated appointing an Obama-approved candidate, in exchange for a cabinet position.

“Did you ever talk to Barack Obama about this Senate seat? Did he have any knowledge about what was going on or not?” Watters asked.

“President Obama began the whole conversation because he sent someone to me as a middleman, a mediator — not unusual in politics — on the night he was elected president to say that he’d like to talk about his choice for the Senate and to see what I might be willing to ask for,” Blagojevich told him. “Political horse-trading, not what those corrupt prosecutors said it was.”

“So it was Barack Obama’s understanding that his liaison was going to work with you to appoint the guy that was going to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat, and Barack Obama, incoming president, wanted to know what was going to be in exchange for the seat, is that what you’re saying?” Watters asked.

“Yeah, he was basically, you know, asking whether—the emissary that represented President-elect Obama was interested in a candidate for the Senate, and he asked what would you be interested in, those kinds of things, and we began a discussion over the telephone on what we might or might not ask for as part of a horse deal. It was routine politics, not anything corrupt or illegal like they tried to say it was,” Blagojevich replied.

The host then asked whether money was involved as part of the deal.

“I never said that there was money in exchange for the Senate seat. We talked about Cabinet positions, we talked about, frankly, federal money for the state of Illinois to address some of the issues we had in our state, we talked about ambassadorships,” Blagojevich explained.

No need to be so crude as to discuss a direct exchange of money, seeing as how once you get the seat the money will follow just as surely as night follows day. Blagojevich can deny that these backroom deals are illegal all he likes; hell, he may even be right about that. No doubt they’re every bit as common as he says too, just another part of the begrimed fabric of end-stage American political decay. But such “horse-trading” is indubitably corrupt, as well as sordid and dishonorable—all in all, completely contrary to the phony “not a whiff of corruption” facade so laboriously constructed around Ogabe to cloak his squalid history.

Blago hints at plenty more dirt and old-school Chicago sleaze yet to come. Hopefully he can get it all dished up before his shocking “suicide.”

Monsters!

Posted on February 27, 2020February 27, 2020 by Mike

Whoever fights Deep State monsters should see to it that in the process she does not become a monster herself. And if you gaze long enough into the Swamp, the Swamp will gaze back into you.

Because socialism is preferable to someone tweeting mean things about the media. https://t.co/1dXoJ2tkAB

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 26, 2020

Poor Megan—now a fully-paid-up DC doyenne now completely adapted and in sync with her environment thanks to her comfy, cozy WaPo sinecure—and her fellow NeverTrumpTard Old Guard pundits still keep using that word, “libertarian.” I do not think that it means what they think that it means. Ashley so-deftly administers the coup de grace:

"I support limited government" and "I want a socialist president" is pretty hard to square up

— Ashley (@luvofUSA) February 26, 2020

Oh, it ain’t merely “pretty hard” there, Ash. It quite literally cannot be done. As they say, one of these things is NOT like the other.

Ain’t skeered

Posted on February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 by Mike

Schlichter’s title contains an unfounded assumption. But other than that, he nails it.

The D.C. establishment and their media rump-kissers went into a full-on spazz mode when President Trump continued his unbroken streak of awesomeness by appointing Ric Grenell the acting Director of National Intelligence, thereby threatening the intelligence community’s unbroken streak of failure. None of our media idiot savants – a term which is only half-accurate – thought to ponder the question of exactly how Ric’s appointment could possibly make the IC worse. Its legacy of ashes is a national embarrassment. But then, the purpose of the currently-constituted intelligence community, the foreign policy community, and every wing of our incompetent, inept, and corrupt establishment is not to serve the people of the United States. Its purpose is to serve the personal interests of the currently-constituted intelligence community, the foreign policy community, and every wing of our incompetent, inept, and corrupt establishment.

Dead on the money so far. But then:

Its denizens fear that this fearless patriot is going to burn down their whole shoddy edifice, and we can only hope they’re right.

Flick that Bic, Ric.

We can hope so, yeah. No real harm in keeping a positive attitude, right?

On the other hand, when has anybody seen any evidence of fear on their part, really? I haven’t. Anger? Yeah. Narcissism? Sure. Assumptions of superiority and entitlement? Absolutely. Vengefulness, pettiness and spite, a strong determination to fight in defense of their presumptive turf? Yep, yep, yep, and damned skippy.

So what real evidence can be cited in support of Kurt’s contention that they’re afraid, they’re very afraid? Or even that they should be? Yes, the Deep State establishment is shrieking, all right. Along with the rest of their ideological confreres on the Left, when are they not? They’ve been shrieking about absolutely everything Trump has done or attempted to do since November 2016, even before. In the case of FedGovCo specifically, however, I do NOT take the anguished caterwauling as evidence Deep State termites are actually afraid of anything. I think of it more along the lines of battlespace prep. Or psyops, maybe.

Kurt goes on from there to laud Grennel for previous accomplishments and overall attitude, and rightly so. Grennel’s appointment bodes well for several reasons. And this bodes even better:

Today, we’re hearing that Kash Patel, a National Security Council staffer and former aide to Devin Nunes, has been tapped as a senior advisor to Grenell. Patel has also been a loyal ally to the President and to Republicans. Patel wrote the famous February 2018 “Nunes memo,” a document which alleged that the FBI used the phony Steele dossier as the basis of their application to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. In his December 2019 report, Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed the accuracy of the entire document.

The importance of having two loyal and like-minded Trump allies in place at the helm of the DNI cannot be overstated.

CBS News’ Catherine Herridge reported that Grenell has been given a mandate which is to “#cleanhouse including a “top to bottom” review of DNI operations.”

This is good news indeed. It appears that President Trump is starting the clean sweep of the government agencies he hadn’t known was so crucial early on.

It’s good news right enough, and I’m glad to see it. Nonetheless, where Kurt sees a glass at least half-full here, I can’t help but also see…well, this:

Three separate stories converged to drive home the obvious truth that America has a two-tiered justice system: the Justice Department’s decision to not indict the guilty-as-sin plotter Andrew McCabe, the attempt to give Roger Stone an outrageous jail sentence, and the Army’s decision to shrug that one of its officers attempted to orchestrate the removal of his commander-in-chief.

There are a couple of simple reasons for this. The most obvious reason is that the entire federal bureaucracy is one giant Democrat machine. This cannot be repeated enough. Nearly every member of almost every single department is a Democrat.

How bad is it? Back in 2016, 95 percent of campaign contributions for the presidential race went to Her Royal Awfulness. The Justice Department overachieved, coming in at 97 percent.

Liberal scolds are always lecturing Americans on how they are racist, imperialist, misogynistic, homophobic monsters, even if they don’t know it due to implicit bias. This is nonsense. But it is curious that these same fools see no problem with implicit bias when the entire government-media-academia complex is one giant exercise in leftist groupthink.

Daniels is talking about the DoJ here, but it’s still relevant; if anything, the IC is even worse. And, as he later cautions, “Identifying the problem is far simpler than coming up with practical solutions.”

It’s as I’ve said all along: a single President is never going to be able to force the Shadow Government genie back into its bottle; no, not even Trump, not even with two terms. The nation has been lured, tugged, and/or dragged—according to which MO seemed most practical or effective at the time—consistently Leftward for nigh on a century now, with a strident, near-continuous effort beginning in the 60s. Anyone seriously thinking that all this might be corrected in a scant eight years, by just one man, isn’t really thinking. He’s dreaming.

Imagine this

Posted on February 24, 2020February 24, 2020 by Mike

For a real change of pace, this one is perfectly easy to spot as a Bee satire.

John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ Rereleased With More Realistic Description Of Communism
UK—Have you ever tried to imagine living in a perfect world ruled by communism, but previously only received the information from catchy folk songs which praise the system? Well, lucky for you, it is now easier than ever to understand what a full-blown communist utopia actually looks like.

That’s because John Lennon’s commie classic “Imagine” has been rereleased with more realistic lyrics to reflect the harsh realities of communism. Lennon, long dead—though not by way of communism, since he was blessed to live in a capitalist country—would be proud of the change, due to its artistic value in realism.

While the classic folk song does do a fantastic job of laying out the basics of communism—no religion, no possessions, no food—it never invites the listener to imagine all the people in their true form, which is dead—usually by firing squad, but often by way of starvation as well.

The folks at the Bee are good enough to provide us with the new lyrics, which include a “re-Imagined” turnaround:

You may say I’m a commie
But I’m not the only one
And someday you will join us
Or we’ll shoot you in the face

Somehow, I just can’t quite see this more candid and factual version being sung at the next big candlelit ‘n’ teary-eyed circle jerk in the wake of yet another Islamic mass slaughter that has nothing whatever to do with Islam. Way too real for the “reality”-based creampuffs to choke down, maybe.

Nothing to see here, folks

Posted on February 23, 2020February 23, 2020 by Mike

I’m SURE it’s all on the up and up.

Philip Haney, the author of “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad,” has died at the age of 73. In addition to being an author, Haney was a long-time Department of Homeland Security expert with a focus on Islamic extremism.

Reports of Haney’s death first appeared on the morning of February 22. Fox News’ contributor Sara A. Carter tweeted regarding Haney’s death saying, “Somebody I deeply respected and considered a friend Phil Haney – a DHS whistleblower during the Obama Admin was apparently killed yesterday in Southern California. Pray for his family and pray they find the person who murdered him. Still trying to get confirmation on details.”

A few quotes, emphasis mine, to set the stage:

Phil Haney spoke out against CAIR in an interview in October with Barry Nussbaum on American Truth Project.

Philip Haney: CAIR is the acronym for the Council on American Islamic Relations. It’s probably the best known Muslim organization in the country, but unfortunately, it’s also connected, irrefutably proven to be connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, the Muslim Brotherhood has been already designated in several countries around the world, including Middle Eastern countries…as a front group up to and including Hamas, which we know as a designated terrorist group itself…We’ve been continuing to track this group and other ones that are part of the Muslim Brotherhood. And I have to say with great distress that if anything, they’re more woven into the fabric of different branches of our government today, 2019 October than they were when I was still active duty within DHS. And yeah, that does seem like a bold statement. It seems like it ought to be impossible, but I think that’s what we’re going to go over today.

Barry Nussbaum: So I get it. And let’s talk specifics. So why in the world Phil with the FBI, the premier law enforcement agency in the world, and certainly our number one national police force whose mission it is to protect us internally within the boundaries of the United States what the heck is the FBI doing in bed with CAIR?

Philip Haney: Well, first of all, let’s make sure to make the point that they are. This isn’t something that started years ago and was taken care of. I’m talking just in the last week or two. CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups have been meeting by invitation from the Department of Homeland Security and/or branches within the U.S. State Department to help implement and develop policy here in the United States. And before I forget it, I should mention that the new focus of the Department of Homeland Security has just released in their new twenty nineteen strategic documents, about 20 to 40 pages, is a focus on white supremacy, not so much Islamic terrorism…And that brings us to the relationship with CAIR. They have now asked groups like CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations all part of the Muslim Brotherhood to come and help them implement this new policy of focus on white supremacy.

Haney’s death was hastily declared a “suicide” by California authorities, via “a single self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Emphasis mine again:

A screenshot taken from Frank Andrew Bostom’s Twitter feed shows what appears to be a statement from Frank Gaffney, the Executive Chairman of the Center for Security Policy.

“As you may know, we lost this week one of our most brilliant, most dedicated and most devout comrades-in-arms: Philip Haney.

While the details are sketchy at the moment, Phil went missing on Wednesday in the area he called home in northern California to which he returned after the passing of his beloved wife, Francesca, following a long struggle with a series of terrible health afflictions. On Friday morning, a sheriff’s deputy finally found his body with a gunshot wound to the chest.

So, Haney committed suicide by shooting himself…IN THE CHEST?!? Nope, no malodorous funk wafting off of that entirely believable story, nosirreebob. I mean, I suppose it maybe happens that way once in a rare while. But it’s hardly the usual way of going about it, which ought to raise questions all by itself.

Why yes, there IS more to consider. Such as: did this guy ever really do or say anything so extreme and/or incriminating as to alarm some of the Ogabe junta‘s more shadowy henchmen, perhaps even enough to have him offed?

During a 2015 appearance on Fox News, Haney said that his work in the Department of Homeland Security had been curtailed and that if it were able to continue, it may have prevented the 2015 San Bernardino shooting. According to Haney, among the places that he was investigating was a mosque attended by the shooter, Syed Farook. Haney alleged that his investigation was curtailed by the Obama administration. Haney said, “Either Syed would have been put on the no-fly list because association with that mosque, and/or the K-1 visa that his wife was given may have been denied because of his association with a known organization.”

In 2016, Haney testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Senator Ted Cruz to allege that the Obama administration had acted irresponsibly with regard to Islamic extremism. Haney claimed that the administration had acted in favor of “political correctness” rather than take actions that may have prevented the June 2016 Pulse night club shooting in Orlando or the San Bernardino shooting in December 2015.

Haney also alleged that the Obama administration destroyed or changed 800 of his files relating to the Muslim Brotherhood because they were deemed offensive to Muslim people.

Hmmm. Well, okay then. But that really isn’t enough, is it? I mean, Haney would have had to represent a real, credible threat to Ogabe and his minions before they’d go to such extraordinary lengths, wouldn’t he?

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) issued a statement Saturday night on the death of Obama DHS whistleblower Philip Haney, who was found dead Friday by police in Plymouth, California. Police said the 66-year-old Haney had what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but that an investigation was “active and ongoing”.

King posted to Twitter, “Phil Haney was a friend & patriot. He was a target because of all he knew of Islamic terrorist coverups. He insured his life by archiving data that incriminated the highest levels of the Obama administration. Phil Haney didn’t kill himself. RIP, Phil.”

Um. Well, okay then. But hey, Haney was no doubt distraught over losing his wife. It’s scarcely unthinkable that a person in such straits might lose all hope and kill himself, right? In fact, people close to him were probably concerned about just such a possibility, I’d expect.

A statement on author Andrew Boston’s Twitter page, said that Haney had returned to California following the death of his wife. That statement also said that Haney was engaged to be married later in 2020. The statement adds that friends of Haney’s say that there was “no way” he would have taken his own life.

Uh. Well. Okay, then. Still. If Haney DID have the goods on Ogabe’s mollycoddling of Moslem terrorists; and DID seem to be coping with the loss of his wife well enough to be planning to get on with his life and remarry; and his relatively positive state of mind has been unequivocally attested to by people close to him; and he was aware that his unflinching realism concerning Moslem terrorist groups, along with his insider knowledge of Ogabe’s treasonous, criminal behavior, would seriously antagonize Ogabe And Pals…wouldn’t he then have expressed concern somewhere along the line about all this having effectively painted a bullseye on his back?

Haney’s close friend Jan Markell, a radio host, author and speaker, tweeted out this from her last conversation with Phil Haney.

My friend Phil Haney was found shot yesterday in CA. I had lunch with him a month ago. He warned something could happen to him. He was to get married in a month. It will be falsely called a suicide.

WELL. Okay, then.

Of course, it’s just absurd to go too far with all this wild-eyed conspiracy mongering. I’m sure we all feel perfectly confident that none of our most powerful professional politicians would ever dream of resorting to such outré measures just to cover their own asses. Right?

RIGHT?!?

Important note to Rod Blagojevich: better be checking your six, buddy.

“Professionalizing” pr0n

Posted on February 22, 2020February 22, 2020 by Mike

Is there NOTHING they won’t try to meddle with, micromanage, and regulate unto ruination?

In a very California story, inter-union drama appears to be marring the introduction of a bill that would require porn stars to get business licenses.

On Tuesday, Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego) and Christina Garcia (D–Bell Gardens) introduced Assembly Bill (A.B.) 2389. The bill would require adult entertainers and video performers, including webcam performers, to obtain a business license and complete a state-mandated training course before being allowed to ply their trade.

Requirements for that training would be developed by the state’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), which would, in turn, be advised by a new 10-member, governor-appointed board composed of two adult film actors, three dancers, two medical doctors, a therapist, and a money manager.

This training will be a minimum of two hours and will provide information on reporting workplace injuries, sexual harassment, and sex trafficking. Adult performers would be required to cover the cost of this training. The bill would also require that they be finger-printed.

The creation of licensure requirements gives state regulators the authority to police the behavior of participants in what is often a pretty informal industry. Reason recently covered how police in Florida have conducted sting operations on handymen as part of their enforcement of that state’s contractor licensing laws.

As Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown has covered extensively, sex workers have plenty of reasons to be apprehensive about the expansion of the regulatory state.

It’s true also that regulatory seeds, once planted, tend to grow. It’s conceivable that the bill’s current two-hour training requirement could be expanded to become more onerous over time.

“Conceivable”? You must be joking; it’s INEVITABLE. The “training requirement” will grow exponentially…as will the licensing fees, the regulations and restrictions, the taxes, the paperwork, the headaches and hassles, and of course the bureaucracy required to administer and oversee it all. It will ALL “expand”—until the point at which no one wants to be in the industry anymore because it just isn’t worth the bother is reached.

At which point a grim milestone of sorts will have been achieved in the Land of the (gag) “Free”: against all odds, Almighty Government will have effectively destroyed the porn and titty-bar industry. Whodathunkit?

Update! Anybody seeing a pattern here?

The same San Diego area assemblywoman who brought you the job-killing AB 5, which kills freelance jobs, is back to finish off the “adult” freelance industry.

The adult workers are gobsmacked that the state has involved itself in their business— and presumes to train them in order to get a license for a job they’re already doing, while being forced to pay for it all.

Then, once the goobermint has “fixed” all the problems, they can get busy “fixing” all the problems their previous “fixing” caused. Lather, rinse, repeat, forever and ever amen. Y’know, like with Obamacare.

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