Meltdown? What Meltdown?

RuiNation

Posted on January 2, 2023January 2, 2023 by Mike

Anybody who has ever worked for a medium-to-large-sized corporation in America has experienced this same sort of thing. Even working for a small, strictly-local B-drayage hauler in the air-freight business for many years, I most certainly have.

What happened to Southwest Airlines?

I’ve been a pilot for Southwest Airlines for over 35 years. I’ve given my heart and soul to Southwest Airlines during those years. And quite honestly Southwest Airlines has given its heart and soul to me and my family.

Many of you have asked what caused this epic meltdown. Unfortunately, the frontline employees have been watching this meltdown coming like a slow-motion train wreck for sometime. And we’ve been begging our leadership to make much needed changes in order to avoid it. What happened yesterday started two decades ago.

Herb Kelleher was the brilliant CEO of SWA until 2004. He was a very operationally oriented leader. Herb spent lots of time on the front line. He always had his pulse on the day-to-day operation and the people who ran it. That philosophy flowed down through the ranks of leadership to the front-line managers. We were a tight operation from top to bottom. We had tools, leadership and employee buy-in. Everything that was needed to run a first-class operation. When Herb retired in 2004 Gary Kelly became the new CEO.

Gary was an accountant by education and his style leading Southwest Airlines became more focused on finances and less on operations. He did not spend much time on the front lines. He didn’t engage front line employees much. When the CEO doesn’t get out in the trenches then neither do the lower levels of leadership.

Gary named another accountant to be Chief Operating Officer (the person responsible for day-to-day operations). The new COO had little or no operational background. This trickled down through the lower levels of leadership, as well.

They all disengaged the operation, disengaged the employees and focused more on Return on Investment, stock buybacks and Wall Street. This approach worked for Gary’s first 8 years because we were still riding the strong wave that Herb had built.

But as time went on the operation began to deteriorate. There was little investment in upgrading technology (after all, how do you measure the return on investing in infrastructure?) or the tools we needed to operate efficiently and consistently. As the frontline employees began to see the deterioration in our operation we began to warn our leadership. We educated them, we informed them and we made suggestions to them. But to no avail. The focus was on finances not operations. As we saw more and more deterioration in our operation our asks turned to pleas. Our pleas turned to dire warnings. But they went unheeded. After all, the stock price was up so what could be wrong?

We were a motivated, willing and proud employee group wanting to serve our customers and uphold the tradition of our beloved airline, the airline we built and the airline that the traveling public grew to cheer for and luv. But we were watching in frustration and disbelief as our once amazing airline was becoming a house of cards.

A half dozen small scale meltdowns occurred during the mid to late 2010’s. With each mini meltdown Leadership continued to ignore the pleas and warnings of the employees in the trenches. We were still operating with 1990’s technology. We didn’t have the tools we needed on the line to operate the sophisticated and large airline we had become. We could see that the wheels were about ready to fall off the bus. But no one in leadership would heed our pleas.
When COVID happened SWA scaled back considerably (as did all of the airlines) for about two years. This helped conceal the serious problems in technology, infrastructure and staffing that were occurring and being ignored. But as we ramped back up the lack of attention to the operation was waiting to show its ugly head.

Gary Kelly retired as CEO in early 2022. Bob Jordan was named CEO. He was a more operationally oriented leader. He replaced our Chief Operating Officer with a very smart man and they announced their priority would be to upgrade our airline’s technology and provide the frontline employees the operational tools we needed to care for our customers and employees. Finally, someone acknowledged the elephant in the room.

But two decades of neglect takes several years to overcome. And, unfortunately to our horror, our house of cards came tumbling down this week as a routine winter storm broke our 1990’s operating system.

The frontline employees were ready and on station. We were properly staffed. We were at the airports. Hell, we were ON the airplanes. But our antiquated software systems failed coupled with a decades old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation had been developed to run this sophisticated machine.

We had a routine winter storm across the Midwest last Thursday. A larger than normal number flights were cancelled as a result. But what should have been one minor inconvenient day of travel turned into this nightmare. After all, American, United, Delta and the other airlines operated with only minor flight disruptions.

The two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of all its crews. ALL of us. We were there. With our customers. At the jet. Ready to go. But there was no way to assign us. To confirm us. To release us to fly the flight. And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.

I believe that our new CEO Bob Jordan inherited a MESS. This meltdown was not his failure but the failure of those before him. I believe he has the right priorities. But it will take time to right this ship. A few years at a minimum. Old leaders need to be replaced. Operationally oriented managers need to be brought in. I hope and pray Bob can execute on his promises to fix our once proud airline. Time will tell.

It’s been a punch in the gut for us frontline employees. We care for the traveling public. We have spent our entire careers serving you. Safely. Efficiently. With luv and pride. We are horrified. We are sorry. We are sorry for the chaos, inconvenience and frustration our airline caused you. We are angry. We are embarrassed. We are sad. Like you, the traveling public, we have been let down by our own leaders.

Herb once said the biggest threat to Southwest Airlines will come from within. Not from other airlines. What a visionary he was. I miss Herb now more than ever.

Whether they know of him specifically or not, many people do. Or almost certainly will, as time grinds on.

The American economic juggernaut was built on the idea that people would start at the bottom of any given enterprise and work their way up based on experience, talent, and knowledge of the business from soup to nuts. Alas for us all, the advent of the MBA replaced that excellent system with nebbish dweebs coming in from outside to “manage” the business without ever having set Foot One on a loading dock, factory floor, or assembly line in their entire lives, which has all but done away with any concept of making it on merit. Those overcredentialed-but-undereducated, shiny-loafered, smug college-boy types have been nothing but sand in the gears of what was once the mightiest wealth-producing engine in all of history.

Look back in anger sorrow

Posted on January 2, 2023 by Mike

Diplomad takes a look in the ol’ rearview, not just at the disastrous annum just past, but a lot further back than that.

This is where I go full old man.

This no-good, horrid year of 2022 draws to a close–none too soon for my taste–and I can only hope that 2023 will prove better. Will it? While I have no great powers of observation and foretelling, what little I do have tell me that things will not get any better. Sorry to be so cheerful.

The impending death of the current year has me reflecting on my own life, and what I have done and not done with it. First, my own life. What have I done? Not much really. I spent some 34 years in the State Department; my tenure there will pass, as they say in Spanish, “sin pena ni gloria,” i.e., unnoticed one way or another. I devoted my adult life to what I thought was my country, its values, and interests. I am now wracked with doubts that that was the case. As we see from the “Twitter Files,” the doubts I had about what was really going on have proven out. I am deeply saddened and depressed by that. Those institutions with which I worked closely for so many years, e.g., FBI, CIA, DOJ, have turned out to be the real enemies. The Taliban, AQ, PRC, or the USSR, could not undermine our nation to any degree comparable to what has been done by our high-tech mafia, allied with the pro-regime media, and the key institutions of the Deep State. The enemy is here; they are in our house, and as we so graphically see every day on our border are openly working to tear it apart. Not just here. I see the same happening in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and all over Western Europe.

The assault on the values, even the most basic ones, of our civilization is relentless. The world we leave our grandchildren is a horrid one: Twerking drag queens in our libraries and schools; feral youth owning the streets; malicious cretins dominating our legal, educational, and public health institutions; an entertainment industry promoting violence and perversion. Not cheerful.

Given the way things currently stand, only a fool, a hermit, or a still-slumbering Rip Van Winkle could be.

White man’s burden

Posted on December 24, 2022December 24, 2022 by Mike

The Dark Continent was anything but a peaceful, idyllic paradise well before the first European Whypeepuh ever set foot on the blighted shitpit.

I confess I was quite skeptical about Gilley’s book, given the needlessly incendiary title. Defending German colonialism, given that any story of late 19th and early-20th century German history will inevitably be wrapped up in that country’s condemnable behavior in two world wars, seems a curious intellectual enterprise for a professional academic (and for readers with more liberal sensitivities, it’s likely to be downright offensive). Not only that, but in a time when America’s post-Cold War foreign policy has been defined by constant overreach that has exacerbated various crises (e.g. regional political instability, anti-American Islamic extremism, migration), it seems a bit tone-deaf to be arguing that Western intervention around the world — especially when the West’s power is diminishing — is something to be encouraged.

Nevertheless, regardless of the strength of Gilley’s defense of German colonialism, the story he tells, substantiated by extensive historical documentation, does quite a bit to undermine popular narratives in America about pre-colonial Africa and the African colonial experience. For starters, the peoples inhabiting what would become Germany’s African colonies were far from innocent peoples living in harmony with each other and nature. Human sacrifice was common among at least one of the tribes of Cameroon. Slavery was common across both Namibia (southwest Africa) and what would become the colony of German East Africa (present-day Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and part of Mozambique).

The Nama and Herero peoples, both of whom had migrated to Namibia only a generation before the Germans (and displaced other indigenous African tribes such as the Damara people in the process), were engaged in bloody, genocidal warfare. In 1850, the Nama massacred a fifth of the Herero population in a single day. The Herero raided native Damara and Saan villages, killing all but the young and strong, whom they exploited as slaves. Many escaped to the Germans. Writes Gilley: “Even if left to their own devices, the Herero and Nama would not have lived in idyllic bliss tending healthy herds of cattle and hosting multiethnic community barbecues.”

Our anti-Western conceptions of colonial Africa are equally misinformed. In 1904, a policy in German East Africa decreed that all children born to slaves beginning in 1906 were free. Moreover, between 1891 and 1912, more than 50,000 slaves in the colony were freed by legal, social, and financial means. By 1920, slavery had virtually been eradicated from the region.

German East Africa was also environmentally conscious, codifying laws prohibiting unlicensed elephant hunting and creating the first game reserves. It promoted education by natives: By 1910, there were more than 4,000 students in state schools. “The Germans have accomplished marvels,” noted a 1924 British report on local education initiatives. The education system in German colonies provided instruction in local histories, cultures, and geographies, as well as technical subjects common in German curricula. Because of this, local language media prospered. “German transformed Swahili from a coastal language of Muslim elites to the lingua franca for the future country of Tanzania,” writes Gilley.

The Germans provided free and accessible medical care for many Africans. They engaged in extensive agricultural and infrastructure projects in Namibia, including roads, railways, water holes, and port facilities. A German scientist developed a vaccine that saved native cattle from a catastrophic illness. The Germans built a 1,250-kilometer railway linking Lake Tanganyika to Dar es Salaam, which to this day “remains the lifeblood of Tanzania’s economy and of Zambia’s trans-shipment traffic.” Economies previously based on slavery transitioned to coffee.

Africa’s most insuperable problem remains the same as it always has been: the horrid place is full of Africans.

But what, you ask, does Africa have to do with the recently-manufactured-from-whole-(kente) cloth “holiday” Kwanzaa? Why, not one single, solitary thing, natch.

Spanning from Dec. 26 to the first of January is Kwanzaa, the invented African American holiday celebrated solely by white liberals and clueless public school teachers. Overblown by leftist claiming the holiday has immense cultural significance, a survey by the National Retail Foundation discovered only 1.6 percent of Americans celebrate Kwanzaa.

The “holiday” was created in 1966 by Ron Karenga, who renamed himself Maulana. Karenga, the founder of the United Slaves, a violent rival organization to the Black Panthers, created the holiday for black Americans and derived the name “Kwanzaa” from the Swahili phrase “matunda y kwanza,” meaning “first fruits of the harvest.” That’s about the extent of the deep African roots the official Kwanzaa website claims.

Guess the extra “a” in Karenga’s dimwitted misspelling lends it extra authenticity. Or, y’know, something. Oh, and do be sure to thank the Germans, Ronnie, for bringing you the Swahili tongue you’re misspeaking, fool.

The history of the holiday and Karenga has been seamlessly suppressed by leftists who find the facts inconvenient. Since few know its origins, the current definitions of the celebration are usually nonsensical and made up, much like the holiday itself.

FrontPage Magazine’s Paul Mulshine writes that “the history of the founder of Kwanzaa has disappeared into an Orwellian time warp.” Indeed, CNN informs readers that Kwanzaa’s violent, racist founder was “a black nationalist and professor of Pan-African studies at California State University at Long Beach,” omitting his criminal and misogynistic past.

Karenga is currently a black studies professor at California State University, Long Beach where the administration is apparently untroubled by the fact that this radical racist is also a convicted torturer of women. Despite the troubling past of Kwanzaa’s founder, leftists continue to shove this fake holiday down America’s throat every Christmas.

Yeah, well, fuck them all to Hell and gone, as always. That said, what Kwanzaa celebration would be complete without a stinking-blotto Granny Boxwine slurring and slobbering her way around the stupid fucking word?

Pelosi ends her final speech as Speaker of the House by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and a "Happy Shwanza" pic.twitter.com/LtcMeA8KIT

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 23, 2022

Heh. Well said, ya haggard old soak.

State of the nation

Posted on December 23, 2022December 23, 2022 by Mike

Radicalized, disenfranchised, post-Constitutional, post-Republic, teetering on the ragged, jagged edge of Apocalypse.

Who Radicalized the Right?
In the process of steamrolling normal people, the Left may have created the very “fascists” they claim to be against.

The term “far-right” is applied far too liberally these days, but the Right has doubtless moved away from conservatism and toward a more radical form of politics. There aren’t too many defectors from Donald Trump’s camp who feel the man is too extreme. Rather, the argument from Trump’s right is that he is not disciplined enough to—as the online Right likes to say—“crush our enemies.” Whether Trump, Ron DeSantis, or some other figure is the Republicans’ nominee in 2024, the frontrunner will not win the hearts of the base by appealing to what conservatives are pleased to call “principle” and speaking in a trans-Atlantic accent. That person will do it by showing he is strong and can be a protector to half the nation.

Of course, the whole purpose of constitutions is to limit power. In a constitutional system like ours, one is not supposed to be motivated by crushing one’s enemies. This has never been the inclination or aim of conservatives, who do not share the Left’s aversion to limits on political power. But things have changed. What happens when one side has no regard for the constitution or the limits of power?

The other side had damned well better recognize what has happened, acknowledge frankly that those they once thought of as “Our Fellow Countrymen” have morphed into an implacable, slavering, ruthless Enemy, and deal with them in accordance with that bleak reality if they hope to get through the inevitable conflict with even a pitiful tittle of their former liberties and rights still intact, that’s what.

The goodwill of the conservative has been mercilessly abused, and he is searching for shelter from the obscene freak show of anarchy and disorder that has descended upon his country.

Joe Biden is but the vessel of the deranged, domineering spirit behind the corruption. This malign force is not the beneficent liberalism of the founders, who cherished freedom of speech, religion, and opinion and, of course, the right to bear arms, and its implicit right of revolution. It is a tyrannical will that asserts total ownership of everything, proudly celebrates evil by calling it good, treats decent people like terrorists, exalts criminals and the insane, snatches children from their parents, and requires submission to itself—in mind and body—for citizens to earn bread.

On top of it all, the means of democratic recourse appear to be slipping. Our elections are a Third World sham, and millions of foreigners with no right to be here live in the country without fear of removal. Their numbers are rapidly growing under the explicit protection of an administration whose party, in between giving lectures on the rule of law, brags about replacing and disenfranchising the country’s natives.

The country is changing fast. A decade ago, the Left said, “We just want gays to be able to marry,” and now they say, “We just want to parade our depraved fetishes in public and sexualize children.”

Faced with all of this, a Caesar who promises to sweep away the trash begins to look appealing to many.

Appealing, hell. In times as fraught and parlous as these, countenancing the rise of a Caesar can quickly become a matter of sheer survival, quite literally so.

Especially when those on the other side are disingenuous, like our leftists, and appeal to principles they do not themselves believe in to get their way. No, the Left doesn’t care about constitutionalism, democracy, liberalism, or any of the high phrases that pepper their pompous speeches. Like a communist Popular Front, these are just words they use to put a benign face on tyranny, and blackmail their opponents into unilateral disarmament.

Forgive me, but for the life of me I can’t recall the last time I heard any Leftist even mention any of those things in passing, much less “pepper(ing) their speeches” with them. Well, excepting “democracy,” as in the “Our Sacred Democracy” bullshit, I suppose. Which mention was as transparently insincere and false as it was convenient for them in the moment, a mere tactic and nothing whatsoever more.

Most on the Right have awoken to this, which is why, outside of a handful of naïve but sincere conservatives, few went out of their way to condemn Trump when he apparently called to suspend the Constitution.

Okay, maybe it’s just me and my fading memory, but I really can’t recall Trump ever having issued any such call, either “apparently” or explicitly.

This may not be a “principled” way of thinking, as some conservatives understand it, but it is not an unreasonable approach in times of such enmity and trouble. The increasingly medieval nature of American politics has left many feeling that a faith in what used to be called principle is outdated and foolish.

When one’s opponents have declared themselves his enemies, nakedly and unequivocally, and regard “principles” not as a quality to be admired but as a weakness to be exploited, insistence on clinging to those principles is the exclusive province of a soon-to-be-subjugated fool.

In a stable, secure nation at peace internally, principles are fine and noble things, a source of pride and strength…provided those principles are shared in common amongst a clear majority of its populace. In a faltering, decaying nation, riven by strife, beset by rampant crime and corruption, however, a mulish adherence to principle can be not only a source of weakness, it can be downright dangerous.

The two dominant factions now resemble hostile nations living under one government while speaking completely foreign languages.

NOW you’re getting it. Because that is precisely where we are now.

Consequently, politics has become a struggle for survival in which, because of universal suffrage, all are conscripted. The inconsequential noise of mutual recrimination leads many to tune out, but to do so, to remain unallied, is to let oneself be trampled.

This is a sad state of affairs, but it is reality.

Yep. We don’t have to like it—SHOULDN’T like it, in fact. But like it or no, we DO have to face up to it, without flinching, dissembling, or further ado. Who “radicalized” us? Who gives a damn? That’s a dead issue at this late date, of no import and well behind us. The only thing that matters now is whether we retain the gumption to embrace that radicalization, and exact a heavy price from the rat-bastards for what they’ve done to us.

A real headscratcher

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Mike

So, where IS that strong fishy odor coming from, anyway?

Christmas meals will cost 16.4% more this year
Christmas meals will take a bigger bite out of your budget this year, according to a recent report.

The holiday dinner grocery basket is estimated to cost an average of $60.29, according to data from Datasembly.

That’s 16.4% higher than last year’s basket when comparing the same exact basket of goods. It’s also double the year-over-year increase reported last year at 8.2%, according to the retail data firm.

According to the data, biscuits had the highest price increase year-over-year, rising 47.7%. Butter and russet potatoes weren’t far behind with prices rising 38% and 32.6%, respectively, the data showed.

The smallest increase, according to Datasembly, was the frozen whole turkey with a 6.3% increase. Although it’s an uptick from last year, that’s still down from November, when the firm reported that frozen turkey was up 11% on average.

And yet, somehow, FederalGovCo expects us all to believe that Bidenflation is around 8%. Riiiiiight.

Doomed by Darwin

Posted on December 17, 2022 by Mike

“Survival of the fittest” does not and will never include Leftists.

Leftists Aren’t Capable Of Surviving Economic Collapse – Here’s Why

Dude, well, I mean, DUH.

With America hovering in a precarious netherworld between stagflationary crisis and deflationary crisis depending on which poison the Federal Reserve chooses to give the country, the stage has been set for an economic disaster similar to the Great Depression or worse (read my analysis on this situation HERE). In two years or less, our system, which is already dealing with a number of threats including high prices and supply chain instability, will not remain functional in the manner most people are accustomed.

If we accept this inevitability, we must then ask a logical question: Who is going to rebuild? Whoever inherits the mantle will either bring America back to freedom and prosperity, or plunge our society into perpetual tyranny. It all depends on who survives the crisis.

One thing that gives me some hope is the fact that leftists as a sub-group of our population are completely incapable of surviving a major economic crisis event. This is not to say that I wish them all to die; I’m only pointing out the reality that most of them won’t make it because they are ill equipped to handle a calamity. Here are the reasons why a post-collapse world would probably be devoid of common leftists…

Boy, talk about your consummations which are devoutly to be wished. Brandon goes on to list several reasons to explain the simple, obvious fact that Leftists, when times get tough, tend to get dead, all of which add up to one incontrovertible conclusion: Proggy can’t hack it. My personal favorites? The last two.

Leftists Rely On Government To Fix Their Problems

If the idea of taking matters into your own hands is abhorrent to you, then you might be a leftist. Leftists view individual action during a crisis as almost criminal; it is important to them that the correct authorities with the correct permissions handle any dangerous situation. Leftists love to defer to the “experts” because this takes the responsibility out of their hands, along with the blame should something go wrong.

But what happens when government is not functional enough to save the day? What happens when inflation or supply chains or personnel shortages make it impossible for government officials to help. What happens when government officials don’t want to help? What happens when they are corrupt and they want to see you suffer?

Leftists rarely consider such possibilities. For them, the idea that government could break down, that the grid could break down and that the rule of law could break down is a conspiracy theory. It has only happened hundreds of times around the world in modern history, but because they have never experienced the threat personally they think it is impossible. These are the kinds of people that die very quickly during collapse.

Leftists Value Feelings Over Reason

The root foundation of leftist ideology is that everything is relative according to one’s personal feelings. That is to say, they believe that their feelings shape their reality, and that “their truth” is the only truth that matters. There are some subjective truths that are near-universal which is why moral conscience is a thing that exists in every culture in the world. That said, personal ideals are still subject to the forces of nature.

You cannot pretend that you are not starving when you are starving. You cannot pretend that you are not dehydrated when you desperately thirsty. You cannot feel your way out of a crisis, the crisis is not subject to your fantasies, the crisis will step on your throat and teach you otherwise.

At bottom, their feelings do not matter. They are irrelevant. And this is a lesson leftists will learn as the system continues to degrade. They can cry and scream and wail and make all the demands they want for fairness and equity and welfare but in the end they will face the clarity of self reliance or they will face the Ferryman.

You can try to argue with that if you really want to, but you’re only gonna make yourself look silly in the doing. Smith’s closer is priceless, too:

It’s not my purpose here to revel in the erasure of the political left. I am only pointing out that modern leftist ideology is a product of extremely safe and controlled environments where people have the privilege to engage in frivolity. They THINK they want deconstruction. They THINK they want chaos as a means to break the system and rebuild it in their image. What they don’t realize is that if they get what they want most of them will die in the process and they will not be around to see their naive Utopia come to fruition.

Not revel in the erasure of the political Left? Forbid it, Almighty God! Such a felicitous development would result in one of the greatest overall boons to Mankind imaginable, removing a crushing millstone from around humanity’s collective neck. It’s a delightful prospect, and as such ought to be reveled in by ALL sane people, everywhere.

“FLY, you fools!”

Posted on December 12, 2022December 12, 2022 by Mike

Looks like a lot of San Franciscans have been heeding Gandalf the Grey’s urgent admonition to the other Nine Walkers from the Bridge of Khazad-dum, right before he smote the Balrog and descended into the deepest pits of Moria along with his foe.

Why no one is buying downtown San Francisco’s luxury condos

Underneath the headline is a photo taken from one of those luxury high-rise apartments, overlooking what was once one of the most physically-glorious cities in all the world, now tragically reduced to a shit-encrusted, unlivable pit of despair, blight, and iniquity by decades of ultra-liberal misrule.

These days, a luxury high-rise in downtown San Francisco with units that appear to be mostly empty isn’t an uncommon sight. As a cooling real estate market continues to impact the city, downtown condos might be some of the hardest-hit properties around.

Patrick Carlisle, Compass’ chief market analyst, said that while economic headwinds are affecting real estate markets everywhere, downtown San Francisco’s condo market has been hit especially hard.

“That market has been hit hardest in the city,” Carlisle told SFGATE. This is due to a few different factors, he said, one being the mass abandonment of downtown office spaces since the start of the pandemic.

IE: all part of The Plan, then.

Speaking of tech workers, Carlisle said the uncertainty brought on by mass tech layoffs has also affected property sales downtown. He added that an increase in homelessness and crime in downtown areas has affected the “quality-of-life ambiance” for people in those areas, presumably buyers who are reluctant to live among the city’s unhoused populations.

This condo market, Carlisle said, is separate from the luxury condos located in areas like Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Pacific Heights and the Marina District. Condos in these areas tend to be built in older, smaller buildings located in less urban neighborhoods and have taken much less of a hit than their glossier counterparts downtown.

“The downtown market has been hit much, much harder than the luxury condo market in these older neighborhoods,” Carlisle said. “I’m not saying there haven’t been effects in places like Russian Hill and Nob Hill and Pacific Heights because there have been. The market has softened there also, quite significantly, but not to the degree that the downtown market has.”

According to a recent report from Compass, the median sales price of a two-bedroom condo in downtown areas has dropped by 16% since 2021, compared to a 7% drop in the price of two-bedroom condos outside of that area. The report also states that condo inventory in this area is more than twice as high as the rest of the city — which explains the seemingly empty high-rises looming everywhere downtown.

In October, one 45-story luxury high-rise made news after it was revealed that only 13 of its 146 units had been purchased in the two years they’d been up for sale. Rumors that Steph and Ayesha Curry had purchased a unit at the property, named the Four Seasons Private Residences, turned out to be false. The development features units that range from studios to $49 million two-story penthouses.

Ah well, “what goes up must come down” still applies, I guess.

Despite these trends, Carlisle said that for some, this downturn may act as a chance to purchase a condo at a lower price.

“Of course, there are people who see this as an opportunity to get a good deal,” Carlisle said. “There are condos selling in the newer luxury developments in the South Beach and Yerba Buena areas at large discounts from what people paid for them three, four years back. You know, we’re talking gorgeous units with spectacular views in ultra-luxury buildings.”

Views that also feature feces-strewn, used-needle-clogged streets and sidewalks; reeking stewbums, junkies, thieves, and miscellaneous thugs; and the ever-dwindling handful of affluent, smarmy shitlibs stubbornly determined to ride the SF disaster out to the bitter end somehow.

Yeah, thanks but no thanks, bub. Having been to SF many times on tour with the BPs over the years, I loved the place for its beauty and once-myriad charm, but no longer. I wouldn’t go back there now if I was being paid by the hour, and obviously I am by no means alone in that sentiment. It’s truly sad, a latter-day American disgrace, that’s what—a pluperfect example of what inevitably results each and every time shitlibs are allowed to run things.

(Via Stephen)

Doing in diesel

Posted on December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Mike

As fossil fuels go, it just might be the most “problematic” of them all.

The $5.25 Per Gallon Canary in the Coal Mine

There may not be a shortage of diesel fuel yet but there is something else that amounts to the same:

Unaffordable diesel.

A gallon currently sells for about $5.25 per gallon on average.

Interestingly, this is about $2 more per gallon than the current cost of a gallon of regular unleaded. The Biden Thing has succeeded in temporarily tamping down the cost of the latter by draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – but diesel prices have not come down appreciably from their spring/summer high of about $5.70 per gallon.

Diesel cost less than half as much two years ago – just before the Biden Thing was selected president.

If you have a diesel-powered car (such as the excoriated-anathematized VW Jettas, Golfs and Beetles equipped with the TDI engines you can’t buy anymore) with a 15 gallon tank, you’re currently paying about $80 to fill ‘er up.

That’s not very affordable.

But not many people are driving diesel-powered cars – chiefly because the car companies haven’t been selling them for about seven years now, ever since the federal government sicced itself on VW for selling them. In italics to emphasize the true nature of VW’s “crime,” which was not “cheating” on government “emissions” certification tests anymore than Matt Strickland’s restaurant, Gourmeltz, was Hut! Hut! Hutted! the other day for supposedly selling alcoholic beverages without an ABC permit.

Alternatives always present problems for those who do not want others to have alternatives.

And now, they don’t.

Diesel-powered vehicles are problem vehicles – from the point-of-view of those pushing the electrification of vehicles. Not only because they go farther than gas-powered vehicles and much farther than electric vehicles – but particularly because it is possible to keep them going independently of a centrally controlled distribution apparatus.

Gas-powered vehicles require gasoline to keep on going. If there’s none at the pump, it is hard to refine your own. Gas does not store very well for very long, either.

Actually, it used to, but not since FederalGovCo foisted the ethanol-based shite on us all, which worthless crap will reliably convert itself into so much sugary glop in about, oh, an hour and a half or thereabouts.

So even if you thought ahead and stored 50 gallons in a drum for just-in-case, its shelf-life is limited.

Electricity is hard to generate independently in the quantity needed by electric cars. Even on 120v grid power, it takes a day or more to instill a charge in a 400-800 volt electric car battery. If the grid goes down, it will take much longer – unless you have a seriously mighty solar array on your roof or on your backyard.

Diesel, on the other hand, stores almost indefinitely. And many diesel engines can burn bio-diesel, which is “diesel” not made from petroleum. It is made from vegetable oil, animal fats and restaurant grease. In other words, almost anyone can make it.

Themselves.

This presents a dangerous alternative to those pushing “electrification,” which is really more about centralization.

Annnnnd BINGO. In other words, for our Deep State lords and masters, this is really about exactly what it’s always about: Power, and Control.

Update! Ernie drops a most interesting and informative comment.

Eric, you have a bit of a technical error. Natural fuels are refined using fractional distillation, the light stuff comes off first, then some gasoline, then kerosene, then progressively heavier grades of fuel oil, down to bunker fuel and asphalt/tar. In a barrel of crude oil there is inherently a lot more diesel fuel of various types than gasoline. Diesel fuel is inherently far more abundant and used to be far cheaper than gasoline- thus its use in heavy haulers like rigs, trains, and ships.

Also, old school mechanically injected diesels are inherently cleaner than gasoline engines until the 90’s closed loop engine management. As usual, pinheads saw occasional puffs of soot and assumed they had to be dirty, leading to a lot of prejudice against Rudolph Diesel’s “black mistress.”

Man, I’m so old I can remember back in the Olden Thymes of the late 70s/early 80s, when diesel was in fact so much cheaper than regular gasoline that people all over the country were dumping their old rides for diesel cars because of the savings they could realize from making the switch. My, how times have changed.

Whistling past the graveyard

Posted on December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Mike

There’s a larger point to be made about the Moore County power outage, and Denninger makes it.

Question: Why couldn’t this be immediately fixed?

Answer: They don’t have spares for the parts that were damaged.

Why do they not have the spares?

Because we sent our supply lines overseas, we made no provisions to have spares, and the regulators at the state and federal level sat on their hands and played with themselves instead of requiring that providers of critical services, such as electricity, had a sufficient stock of spares to cover both routine failures and those caused by weather or low-grade assaults perpetrated by small numbers of people.

This is the gross incompetence we have throughout our society. It is the manifestation of “oh nothing bad will ever happen so we don’t have to be prepared for it” that has shown up in all manner of other places, such as the cars that are completed except for chips in their engine computers without which they will not run, and thus they’re sitting in a field unsold.

Rather than insist that such critical items be produced here in the United States, including all precursor components over the last couple of decades we did nothing of the sort. We allowed the nickel to be “saved” and then pocketed by the shareholders, directors and officers while offshoring supply to China and other places which have no duty to US citizens.

We then went further in our official malfeasance and performed no audits or forced corrective action when the spares were not available and resupply looked possibly challenged, to the point that vehicles are stacked up and can’t be sold for want of a chip and now power is out in an entire county because the switchgear and transformers in two bog-standard substations that feed the area were damaged and the power company has no spares available to immediately replace them.

What you should learn from this is that this sort of disruption is tiny compared to what ever one hundred dedicated men, uncorrelated and thus unable to be interdicted in advance could do any time they decided to.

Further, while I’m sure they’ll find the parts somewhere in the US and restore power if the damage was to fifty counties instead of one the odds are high that said parts would not exist at all in the United States and might not be available in sufficient quantity to actually restore service to everyone for months or even longer.

A commenter over at Aesop’s joint hammers it in deeper.

Just in case you all are not aware of the reality of our power grid and the companies that maintain them. Regional depots have maybe 1 or at most 2 of those larger HV transformers sitting in a warehouse, these are the ubiquitous monsters about 10×10 ft that convert the high tension down to more usable voltages for local distribution in our towns and factories. The smaller pole mounted units, perhaps in the few hundreds per depot, seeing they are a more common failure point due to heat, leaks, lighting strikes, trees falling or wayward ordnance.

What this means is that if there is ever a real effort to damage our grid by enemies, foreign or domestic, there is not enough replacement equipment on the ground in the entire country to fix it quickly.

Now the cute kicker or as they say, “and now the rest of the story”. Most of our grid maintenance parts come from, yep, the PRC. And guess who will conveniently have “issues” in ramping up production for the export market, especially when they themselves are using most of the factory output internally (remember those 5 new coal plants going live/week over there)? Yes good sirs, we are royally screwed if any untoward events suddenly ramp up.

Bayou Pete brings it on home for us.

As a former Civil Defense sector officer, trained in disaster planning and recovery, allow me to assure you, that commenter is absolutely correct. His words apply to every country on the planet. The electrical utilities simply can’t afford to stockpile large quantities of replacement transformers. The bigger and more expensive the transformer, the fewer they’ll have on hand. Even simple components such as the glass insulators used on high-tension electrical cables criss-crossing the country are only stocked in limited quantities. If random individuals were to pause alongside rural roads and shoot out, say, a thousand of those insulators, there’d be the devil to pay to replace them all in the short term. If they shot out ten thousand…forget about it. There aren’t enough power crews, let alone insulators, to repair that sort of damage in anything less than weeks, possibly months.

At this writing, there’s somewhere north of 35,000 North Carolinians sitting in the dark, in 30-degree weather, who won’t be getting their electricity restored until Thursday, as of the last estimate I saw. Not good. Not good a-TALL.

BOTTOM LINE: The US electrical grid, not just in semi-rural Eastern NC but nationwide, is fragile, hopelessly out of date, and entirely vulnerable to being taken down with preposterous ease—interminably, no training or specialized tools necessary, by any motivated passerby with a point of his own to make. Make of all that what you will. As Peter says: food for thought, indeed.

Update! AP puts it bluntly: “A LESSON IN ASYMMETRIC WARFARE IN MOORE COUNTY.” Pretty much, yeah, for anyone inclined to interpret it as such.

Broken

Posted on December 2, 2022 by Mike

Methinks Tablet editor in chief Alana Newhouse and her correspondent Ryan are definitely onto something with this idea.

At one point last year, Ryan said something that struck a nerve. “I don’t know what I identify as these days, because everything has gotten so scrambled,” he noted. “I’m not a Democrat or a Republican, I don’t even think I could define myself narrowly as either a liberal or a conservative anymore. The one thing I know that I fundamentally do believe is the premise of your piece, that the dominant institutions of American life—in education, in the arts, in politics—are either totally broken or so weak or corrupt that they’re becoming irrelevant. In a way, the only thing I know that I believe in is…brokenness.”

Ryan went on to explain that, when he gets into political debates with friends and acquaintances these days, those on the “other side” aren’t all liberals or all conservatives or in fact all from any other previously recognizable camp. Instead, they are the people in his life who, regardless of how they vote or otherwise affiliate, remain invested in the institutions and political ideologies that now leave Ryan cold. Many of them acknowledge that there are problems, even serious ones, with universities, newspapers, nonprofits, both political parties, what have you, but they see these as normal, fixable challenges, not signs of fundamental brokenness. To them, the impulse to consign weighty institutions to the dustbin of history feels impulsive and irresponsible—like arson. To Ryan, staying committed to decrepit structures, and insisting to others that they are fundamentally safe when they’re clearly not, is what feels reckless.

Most Americans don’t fall squarely into one of these two camps. Around 40% don’t even vote. But among the people who do engage in debates about this country’s future, the ones doing it most compellingly are not those still stuck in the battle between “Democrats” and “Republicans,” or “liberalism” and “conservatism.” The most vital debate in America today is between those who believe there is something fundamentally broken in America, and that it’s an emergency, and those who do not.

…Many people understandably see our current moment as a wave of change that can be ridden successfully—without overblown diagnoses or radical solutions. These are status-quoists, people who are invested in the established institutions of American life, even as they acknowledge that this or that problem around the margins should of course be tackled. Status-quoists believe that any decline in quality one might observe at Yale or The Washington Post or the Food and Drug Administration or the American Federation of Teachers are simply problems of personnel, circumstance, incompetence, or lack of information. Times change, people come and go, status-quoists believe—this outfit screwed up COVID policy, yes, and that place has an antisemitism problem, agreed. But they will learn, reform, and recover, and they need our help to do so. What isn’t needed, and is in fact anathema, is any effort to inject more perceived radicalism into an already toxic and polarized American society. The people, ideas, and institutions that led America after the end of the Cold War must continue to guide us through the turbulence ahead. What can broadly be called the “establishment” is not only familiar, status-quoists believe; it is safe, stable, and ultimately enduring.

On the other side are brokenists, people who believe that our current institutions, elites, intellectual and cultural life, and the quality of services that many of us depend on have been hollowed out. To them, the American establishment, rather than being a force of stability, is an obese and corrupted tangle of federal and corporate power threatening to suffocate the entire country. Proof of this decay, they argue, can be seen in the unconventional moves that many people, regardless of how they would describe themselves politically, are making: home-schooling their children to avoid the failures and politicization of many public and private schools; consuming more information from YouTube, Twitter, Substack, and podcasts than from legacy media outlets; and abandoning the restrictions, high costs, and pathologies of the coasts for freer and more affordable pastures in the Southeast and Southwest.

Brokenists come from all points on the political spectrum. They disagree with each other about what kinds of programs, institutions, and culture they want to see prevail in America. What they agree on—what is in fact a more important point of agreement than anything else—is that what used to work is not working for enough people anymore.

Worse, the people for whom it IS still working are the selfsame nefarious wreckers who broke the whole damned system in the first place, intentionally and with malice aforethought.

(Via WeirdDave)

The power of information control

Posted on November 12, 2022 by Mike

It’s the first crucial step along the way to establishing dictatorial control over everything else.

In light of the clown show that was the election on Tuesday I wanted to share some of my thoughts on what I see as the path forward from here. I made a post on Gab yesterday that got tens of thousands of engagements both on and off Gab. I think it’s important to analyze why this post resonated so widely and where we go from here.

That’s Andrew Torba, following up on the Gab post I mentioned here last night.

One thing I noticed in the thousands of replies of this post is the unity across the generations. If you know anything about the Gab community, or perhaps from your own experience with the people in your own life, it’s that Boomers and Zoomers rarely agree on anything especially when it comes to political strategy.

On this subject though there seems to be a mass consensus across every generation from young to old: between election fraud, citizen disenfranchisement via decades of illegal aliens invading our country, and the Regime’s total control over the flow of information and censorship of any dissent: Republicans have zero chance of winning the Presidency in 2024.

Millions of people are waking up to the reality that a small percentage of the population controls 98% of the flow of information and news to the people. This is incredibly important. No other political issue matters more. He who controls the media controls the minds of the masses. It’s that simple.

Gab community member @PaxChristus made a post that demonstrates this reality well.

In Russia, where gay propaganda is banned, 70% of people oppose gay marriage and that number has been increasing in recent years.

In America, where opposition to LGBT is heavily censored, 70% of people support gay marriage and that number has been increasing in recent years.

Democracy is purely about information control.

As the top commenter on this post pointed out, German conservative revolutionaries like Oswald Spengler realized this in the early 1900’s.

Democracy has become a weapon of moneyed interests. It uses the media to create the illusion that there is consent from the governed. The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play. The notion of democracy is often no different than living under a plutocracy or government by wealthy elites. -Oswald Spengler

People like Fetterman “winning” is just another Regime humiliation ritual on the American people. They have that much control over our country that they can have Biden installed in the Presidency and Fetterman—who has literal brain damage—installed in the US Senate.

We have to remember that the people in power are rootless cosmopolitan globalist elites. They don’t see themselves as Americans. They see themselves as “global citizens.” They have no pride in our country. They hate it, they hate us, and they want to humiliate Americans while extracting as much of our resources, labor, and military power as possible.

That’s about the size of it, yeah. Bleak as the current situation is, though, Torba isn’t succumbing to despair just yet.

The Path Forward: Balkanize and Build
Voting harder isn’t going to cut it. We have to build. The existing system will collapse. It’s not a matter of if, but when. When that happens we need to have Christian infrastructure in place to fill the power vacuum. The Amish have had it right this entire time. Their communities are growing and thriving. They will continue to do well. We must become a form of neoamish, building sovereign communities and families away from Babylon. Technology is okay and a good tool. It’s something we can use to our advantage to communicate, build, and engage in commerce with one another.

We are the new pilgrims. We must move to deep red states, push them further right, build, and secure a future for our families. Forget politics at the national level. That rigged game is over. Focus on state and local elections, not what is going on in DC.

Conservatism has failed. It has been trying to conserve a country and a culture that is never coming back and has long been gone. The future of the West depends on those of us who are going to build. Build our own infrastructure, our own families, our own communities, our own parallel economy, and our own strongholds of deep red states. We’ll build a wall around the borders of those states if that’s what it comes to. We need to accept exile from Babylon and get to work.

Americans appear to have lost all touch with the independent pioneer spirit, resolve, and flint-eyed personal grit that made this country great to begin with. Some of us had it stolen from them by main force, while some willingly abandoned it to lapse into lotus-eating, preferring instead to become indolent, pampered brats without the inner steel to defend all that is rightfully theirs: liberty, prosperity, and the pursuit of happiness, in the sense of the words our Founders meant by them. That precious, golden heritage can never be restored to us unless we roll up our sleeves and restore it ourdamnedselves.

(Via Dave Renegade)

The Long March triumphant

Posted on November 11, 2022November 11, 2022 by Mike

Humble apologies to the esteemed and estimable Robert Spencer, whose typically excellent “election” post-mort I found nearly impossible to hew to proper fair-use strictures with.

John Della Volpe, a hard-Left pollster and author of a deathless tome entitled FIGHT: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear & Passion to Save America, is claiming that his favorite age group saved the midterm elections for those who love skyrocketing inflation, open borders, rising crime, international ridicule and brinksmanship, and accelerating authoritarianism. Della Volpe tweeted,

“One thing I know already. If not for voters under 30 … tonight WOULD have been a Red Wave. CNN National House Exit Poll R+ 13 65+ R+ 11 45-64 D +2 30-44 D +28 18-29 #GenZ did their job.” He added, “& young #millennials :)”

If Della Volpe’s numbers are correct, and 64% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 really voted for Democrats, then one thing is clear: the corruption and politicization of our educational system has worked.

What he is crowing about is the apparent fact that the voting group with the least life experience and the most recent subjection to the Leftist indoctrination that dominates America’s educational system ended up voting as it was brainwashed to do. Gee, that’s terrific, if you like evidence of the success of the relentless propagandizing of a vulnerable and impressionable captive audience, but neither John Della Volpe nor anyone else should be proud of it. What it shows is not that the Leftist case is compelling or persuasive; it shows that patriotic Americans have been far too complacent in allowing public schools to become centers of Leftist indoctrination and hatred of our own nation and heritage.

People have awakened to this in large numbers in recent years as the Left has, as always, overplayed its hand. Angry parents began showing up at school board meetings in large numbers to protest the imposition of race-hate propaganda, aka Critical Race Theory, in public schools, as well as the presence of outright and unmistakable pornography in the guise of “gender-affirming” literature. This got so embarrassing for the Left that Gestapo chief Merrick Garland, that indefatigable foe of “white supremacists” (as soon as he can find any), actually sicced the FBI on those parents as if they were a terrorist threat.

But this endeavor has been going on since long before Garland first put on his jackboots and resolved to destroy the republic. In the 1960s, Leftists began what Communist activist Rudi Dutschke indelibly dubbed “the Long March Through the Institutions.” In China, Communist leader Mao Zedong began the Long March in 1934 to evade nationalist forces; the term, however, came to be associated with his slow, steady, patient rise to power, culminating in the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949. The Long March Through the Institutions was the same kind of slow, steady takeover, as Communists, leftists, and their allies gradually gained control of America’s colleges and universities, its primary and secondary educational systems, its popular culture, and above all its ever-growing federal bureaucracy.

This has created a situation in which those who oppose this multifarious and all-encompassing establishment are universally derided virtually everywhere one turns: in what are supposed to be objective and impartial news broadcasts; in lessons at every level of the educational system about the nation’s history, present condition, and future prospects; in movies, popular music, and more. All of the late-night comedians who host talk shows are part of this camp, and they hobnob with the political elites, and yet they still posture as if they were plucky outsiders going up against a stultified and stultifying entrenched orthodoxy.

I myself, along with many of you folks as well, know all too well that the origins of fascist Amerika v2.0 are to be found in our warped and corrupted “education” establishment, from K-12 right up through the universities and colleges, all of which was long since coopted successfully in accordance with Gramsci’s brilliantly sinister thesis. Unless and until this has been addressed and rectified, there can be no real hope for America That Was, nor for those of us who cherish her still.

I did somehow contrive to leave the closing ‘graphs out of my excessive excerpting, so as to provide y’all at least SOME “rest” you could click on over and read. But hey, it wasn’t easy.

Know thine enemy

Posted on November 11, 2022November 11, 2022 by Mike

Kenny left a response to Skeptic’s comment, here:

No way PA chose Climate Change, Abortion and Trans/Pedo Grooming over Inflation, Energy Jobs, Crime, The Economy, Education and other bread and butter issues and even the gaslit polls admit that. THOSE were the hot button issues and Frankenstein Two Headed Man was on the WRONG side of every one.

Now, Kenny is a great guy, a well-read, smart, and knowledgeable guy. I feel myself privileged indeed to be able to count him as a friend, and to have him amongst us here at CF as an active participant. But he’s missing something in this one instance, something YUGE. To wit: he’s making the mistake of imagining the shitlib Left, in Pennsy or anyplace else, think more or less the way Normal Americans do. By the numbers:

Climate change? You mean “saving Mother Gaia” from the wanton, destructive depradations of greedy, venal, outside-Nature Hoomon Beenz
Abortion? You mean “a woman’s right to choose,” a sacramental right to “health care” which MUST be protected at all and any cost
Trans/Pedo Grooming? You mean the fundamental right to enjoy total, unrestricted sexual liberty, not that this “Grooming” nonsense ever happens anyway, you H8ful liars
Inflation? Ain’t none, since our most excellent President did such a marvelous job reviving a US economy Trump, in his supreme arrogance and incompetence, had so idiotically wrecked
Energy? If it ain’t green, it’s mean, you H8RRZZ
Crime? What are you, scared or something, you big coward?

And so on from there. Not only is there no shared opinions between Us and Them on the issues of the day, we don’t even agree on which issues are legitimate matters of concern and import among sensible, well-meaning people in the first place.

Shitlibs in PA, along with their likewise cognitively-challenged brethren, sistren, and whatevren scuttling fearfully about in their decaying urban hellscapes across the blighted plain, will always and forever vote against Real Americans, America That Was, and absolutely everything Our Side holds dear, worthwhile, and righteous. Because reasons, that’s why. Previous Presidents have been pleased to begin their every public address with a reference to “My fellow Americans,” which for a long, long time held at least some water. Not anymore; not since the mid-1960s at least, possibly longer. The TWANLOC acronymic is a Thing, and it’s all too apt a descriptor nowadays.

Update! The way they think. If you want to be generous and call what they do “thinking.”

If you’re reading this, chances are that when you cast your vote, your focus is on real-life issues. Gas prices. Inflation. You care about law and order, and hence didn’t like it when Democratic mayors and governors allowed Antifa and Black Lives Matter to run riot. You care about individual liberty, and hence resented the restrictions imposed during the pandemic by many of those same Democratic mayors and governors.

Millions of Democratic voters, however, don’t think like that. Many of them can afford not to. They’re part of the social, cultural, and political establishment—or at least think they’re part of it, or want to be seen as being part of it. They’re well off enough, for example, not to have to worry too much about rising prices at the gas pump or supermarket.

But even those Democrats who aren’t so well off, and whose lives are affected by grocery bills and lawlessness in the streets, won’t let such phenomena change their vote. Because their politics, take them for all in all, aren’t very firmly grounded in reality.

On the contrary, millions of them are driven, to at least some extent, by ideology. They buy the idea that American capitalism—and the American consumer—should take a serious hit to stop climate change, an ideologically rooted concept for which they’ve seen no evidence whatsoever. They defend the depredations of Antifa and BLM as noble assaults on a corrupt system, even if their own windows end up being broken.

Their own individual liberty, if on their radar at all, is far lower down on their list of values than gestures in the direction of collective well-being, so that during the lockdown they welcomed state-ordained limitations on their movements—even though those limitations had no basis in science. They believe that certain groups are by definition oppressed, and so will automatically oppose any action, however reasonable or just, that might conceivably harm illegal immigrants, offend Muslims, or make trans people uncomfortable—and by the same token will support almost anything that will presumably make members of these groups happy.

Moreover, the media that they trust have taught them to view with contempt voters who are preoccupied with such issues as crime and the cost of living. They’ve been persuaded that when some voters speak of crime, it’s a coded way of expressing racism, and that when some voters complain about high gasoline prices, they’re simply being selfish: for isn’t it far more socially responsible to worry about climate change—to which fossil fuels contribute massively—than to gripe about whatever one has to pay to fill one’s gas tank?

They see themselves as taking the long view. The unselfish view. Yes, you can describe their politics as “virtue signaling”—and you’d be right. But there’s something else they want to signal: the boundary between themselves and the rest of us. They’re desperate to make it clear to the world that they’re not MAGA folks—not grubby little “deplorables,” always preoccupied with their own narrow interests and their own so-called freedom.

After Biden took office, his handlers defined him largely in opposition to Trump. Trump wanted to build a wall, so Biden opposed it. Trump made the U.S. energy-independent, so Biden had to undo that, prontissimo. Millions of establishment Democratic voters operate the same way, perhaps often unconsciously: they define themselves in opposition to the likes of us.

By George, I think he’s got it!

Hearty congratulations to all involved

Posted on November 9, 2022November 9, 2022 by Mike

A dark, disappointing day for those folks eagerly anticipating a Red Wave that never quite materialized, certainly, but not without its sunnier side all the same. First on the list of reasons for every American to stand up and cheer themselves hoarse: the honest, wise, and true voters in the Peach State have overwhelmingly reelected Stacy “MBT” Abrams to her second glorious term as Georgia’s governor!

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp Declared Winner Over Stacey Abrams

Waitwaitwait, WHAT? WHAAAT?!? How did THAT preposterous, counterfactual nonsense get up there? Stop LYING, you LYING LIAR BASTARDS!

Decision Desk HQ projects Brian Kemp (R) re-elected governor in Georgia.#DecisionMade: 9:30pm EST

Watch our livestream: https://t.co/94KbTlKwRz pic.twitter.com/zo2miMxdpX

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 9, 2022

NOOOO!!! What the fucking FUCK are you Fake News Election Denialist Tarrrumpapumpumkins trying to do to us here with these transparent fabrications, anyhow?!?

Governor Brian Kemp wins Georgia!

Follow along with us for more election updates: https://t.co/Z4mb5KdWbx pic.twitter.com/ARfCNME5zM

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 9, 2022

Sweet bleeding Christ on a pogo stick, it’s like one of those horrible bad dreams you just can’t wake up from, no matter what you do!

“No one in Georgia’s history has done more to create jobs, cut taxes, restore sanity to your schools, put criminals behind bars, protect the unborn, and secure all the God-given liberties enshrined in the Constitution of the United States than Gov. Brian Kemp,” former Vice President Mike Pence told a crowd in Georgia.

“We’ve been doing good in this day because we have been saying no to Stacey Abrams,” Kemp said. “We were listening to you, and because we’ve done that, we’ve got an incredible economy. We’ve got the most people ever working in the history of the state, the lowest unemployment rate in the history of the state.”

Stop it! For the love of God, will you people please just STOP IT ALREADY!!! I can’t even…good Lord, it’s as if…why, it’s…it’s…

AT LONG LAST, HAVE YOU NO DECENCY?!?

“Austin Has Been Invaded by Texas”

Posted on November 8, 2022November 8, 2022 by Mike

LOVE the headline. It just says so much, y’know?

On a late summer evening, friends of John Stettin gathered at a bar called Kitty Cohen’s in East Austin to say good-bye. A carrot cake with “Good Luck” written in orange icing softened in the heat, but as far as they were concerned, the occasion was his birthday. “You can’t say, ‘Happy going away!’” said Jeff, his best friend, greeting him with a hug. “We’re just not happy. We’re all very sad about it.” Good-bye parties are inherently not that fun. They’re even less fun when they’re driven by a far-right takeover of the state government.

“Tell him he can’t leave,” whispered a woman seated under an umbrella. “There are too many Republicans.”

To hear Stettin tell it, that is precisely why he is moving out of what Rick Perry once described as the “blueberry in the tomato soup,” a predominantly Democratic city full of liberal expats like himself seeking progressive politics and an urban lifestyle at a red-state cost-of-living discount. “It was easy to just be in Never Neverland, floating with a bunch of other transplants having a good time,” said Stettin, who relocated from Dallas to Austin five years ago.

But then 2020 happened. As the pandemic raged, Governor Greg Abbott banned municipalities including Austin from implementing COVID measures such as mask mandates. The following year, amid a brutal winter storm, the state’s electric grid failed, killing hundreds and leaving millions freezing in the dark, and it has yet to be fixed. That summer, Abbott codified permitless carry and further restricted voting access. This past February, he ordered investigations into the parents of trans children for child abuse. By June, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Texas was ten months ahead, having already effectively banned abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest and topped it with a $10,000 reward for informants.

“It’s like how a frog boils one degree at a time,” Stettin said. “They trigger-banned all abortion and they’re offering a bounty! What more do you need if you are a remotely liberal person to get the fuck out of here?” His destination was Massachusetts. “At least if I’m going to get into an argument with a guy in Boston,” he said, “he’s probably not carrying an AR-15 in his trunk.”

An EXCELLENT choice, Poindexter Hoplophobe. The People’s Republic of Taxachussetts is precisely the right place for you and your simpering shitlib compatriots. Get thee gone, toot fucking sweet.

This summer, that anxiety pervaded a stratum of liberal Austin, namely women, LGBTQ+ folks, parents, and people of color who fear a future in Texas and have the means to escape. The overturning of Roe seemed to remove the last obstacle in the state’s march to the far right, which is likely to be cemented in the upcoming election where Beto O’Rourke is way behind Abbott. While the Democratic mayor and the liberal city council institute token measures such as decriminalizing abortion, it’s cold comfort. One 25-year-old woman said she had her tubes tied, fearing the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy.

Progtards getting abortions? Their tubes tied? Sounds like one of those vanishingly rare self-solving problems to me, if on a too-slow-to-suit-me timescale.

One couple may relocate to the Northeast to carry out their pregnancy. Some job candidates are refusing to relocate. At Stettin’s party, his friend Jeff swiped open his phone to a note entitled “New Austin Cities” — a list of places that are what Austin used to be to him before he moved here from New York. It read, “Pittsburgh, Durham, Boise, Columbus, Jackson Hole, Chattanooga. Factors: Climate change, demographics, economy, location, taxes, nature, weather.” He plans to stick it out at least for now. “Global warming in the next ten years,” he said. “That’s gonna be fucking real.”

Oh, you betcher. As “real” as it ever was, at any rate. Although I must say, I always liked Pittsburgh quite a lot, and hate to imagine liberal locusts ruining it the way they do everywhere else they invade.

However many people leave, it will be small in comparison with how many keep coming. Austin is the fastest-growing metro in the U.S., and its population has increased by one-third over the past decade, with people from across Texas and the nation lured to the hippie-cowboy capital by tech jobs. In some cases, this explosive growth has bred at least as much discontent as the shifting political landscape. What was once seen as an affordable, creative haven is now a runaway boomtown, pricing out most of whatever was left of Austin’s proclaimed weirdness and drawing frequent comparisons to San Francisco.

A-HENH.

Parents of trans children started to flee months ago. In March, Karen had just picked up her 10-year-old daughter from acting camp when she began telling her about an upcoming protest at the governor’s mansion against Abbott’s order instructing Child Protective Services to investigate families providing gender-affirming medical care to their trans children for child abuse.

Translation from the Libspeak: medical care=wanton mutilation. The “child abuse” stands as is, no correction required. To wit:

Karen (whose name is being withheld to protect her family) asked if her daughter might want to do a voice recording to share her story with the crowd. “Am I going to die?” she asked. Stunned, Karen asked why she would think such a thing. “Because everybody here hates me.” Karen pulled over, jumped out, and threw her arms around her daughter as they sobbed. “It was that moment when I knew we had to leave,” she recalled through tears.

See what I mean? This woman has severely damaged her poor child by convincing her that everyone in Austin, or anyplace else for that matter, “hates” her—solely to puff up her own overinflated self-regard and political vanity, no other reason. Child, let me assure you: nobody “hates” you, nobody. They aren’t even thinking about you at all, I promise, whatever your sick, narcissistic mother tells you to the contrary. She has some serious mental-health issues of her own, much as I hate to have to inform you of it.

A second-generation Texan, she stayed as long as she could. “I’ve always said, ‘I’m gonna stay and fight until they try to take my kids away,’” she said. While she said her daughter is not undergoing any sort of medical treatment targeted by the directive, she did not want to risk being separated from her children. In early June, they fled from Austin to Portland, Oregon. When she told her Republican father about her decision, he burst into tears. He said, “I’m glad you’re getting out of here to get someplace safe.”

Karen said she has PTSD from the experience, and she feels survivor’s guilt for not staying behind to fight with other families with trans children. But in the end, leaving is what she, and at least five other families she knows, had to do. Speaking from Portland, she said, “I am genuinely frightened for my home state.”

Don’t be, Countess Queefula. Portland sounds like just the place for you, and your home state will be better off without you constantly weeping and moaning all over the damned place from sheer irrational terror. Free advice: seek professional help after you’ve gotten settled into your new digs, without a moment’s delay. I’m confident some Portland headshrinker is going to just LOVE getting his/her hands on your extravagantly fucked-up ass.

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