SHOCKER: “experts” wrong again!

Is ANYBODY still fool enough to listen to these idiots?

Are Low-Fat Dairy Products Really Healthier?
For decades, experts have said that less is more when it comes to dairy fat and health. But recent research has called this into question.

Scan the dairy case of any grocery store, and you’ll find rows upon rows of products with varying levels of fat. Nonfat, low-fat, whole: What’s the healthiest option?

If you consult the U.S. dietary guidelines or health authorities like the American Heart Association or the World Health Organization, the answer is clear: Choose a fat-free or low-fat version.

This recommendation stems from the idea that full-fat dairy products are high in saturated fats, so choosing lower-fat versions can reduce your risk of heart disease, said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at Tufts University.

But that guidance goes back to 1980, when the first edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans was published, he said. And since then, most studies on the health effects of dairy fat have failed to find any benefits of prioritizing low-fat versions over whole, Dr. Mozaffarian said.

What seems to be more important than the level of fat, he added, is which dairy product you choose in the first place.

In studies that have surveyed people about their diets and then tracked their health over many years, researchers have found associations between dairy consumption and lower risks of certain conditions, such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, Dr. Mozaffarian said.

Such benefits, he added, were often present regardless of whether people chose reduced-fat or full-fat yogurt, cheese or milk. And though full-fat dairy products are higher in calories, studies have found that those who consume them aren’t more likely to gain weight.

In one study published in 2018, for example, researchers followed 136,000 adults from 21 countries for nine years. They found that, during the study period, those who consumed two or more servings of dairy per day were 22 percent less likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 17 percent less likely to die than those who consumed no dairy at all. Notably, those who consumed higher levels of saturated fat from dairy were not more likely to develop heart disease or die.

In another large analysis, also published in 2018, researchers pooled the results from 16 studies involving more than 63,000 adults. They found that, across an average of nine years, those who had higher levels of dairy fats in their blood were 29 percent less likely than those with lower levels to develop Type 2 diabetes.

This finding suggests that there may be a benefit to consuming dairy fat rather than avoiding it, Dr. Mozaffarian said.

Gee, imagine my surprise. Here’s my own “dietary recommendation,” for whatever it’s worth: Eat whatever the fuck you like, without being a glutton about it. Keep the sugar and junk food to a minimum. That is all, over and out, period fucking DOT. Right straight to hell with the “experts” and their usual doomsay—because in another decade or two, they’re all going to turn on a dime, reverse course, and denounce the current advice completely. Just as they always do, and always have done.

Low-fat, no-fat? No way, not this boy, not ever. Right straight to hell, also, with lab-created chemical abominations like margarine instead of butter; foul-tasting artificial sweeteners; thin, watery cow-juice instead of the full-flavor original; veggie “burgers” and Notdogs instead of the genuine article. Eat that gunk if you want to, you’ll never need to worry about tripping over me to get at it.

(Via Insty)

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Moar Christmas tuneage

Tonight’s musical offering is “When Christmas Comes To Town,” a lovely, affecting little song from the soundtrack of the 2004 film The Polar Express. Background:

The Polar Express is a 2004 American animated adventure fantasy film directed by Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the screenplay with William Broyles Jr., based on the 1985 children’s book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. It stars Tom Hanks in multiple roles, with Daryl Sabara, Nona Gaye, Jimmy Bennett, and Eddie Deezen in supporting roles. The film features human characters animated using live action and motion capture computer animation, with sequences for the latter taking place from June 2003 to May 2004. Set on Christmas Eve, it tells the story of a young boy who sees a mysterious train bound for the North Pole stop outside his window and is invited aboard by its conductor. He joins other children as they embark on a journey to visit Santa Claus preparing for Christmas.

The Polar Express premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 13, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 10, 2004, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and initially grossed $286 million against a record-breaking $165–170 million budget, which was the biggest sum for an animated feature at the time. Later re-releases helped propel the film’s gross to $314 million worldwide, and it was later listed in the 2006 Guinness World Records as the first all-digital capture film. The Polar Express is also the last film appearance for Michael Jeter before his death and is dedicated to his memory.

Hanks optioned the book in 1999 with the hopes of playing the conductor and Santa Claus. One of the conditions of the sale was that the resulting film not be animated. Zemeckis, however, felt that a live-action version was unfeasible, claiming that it “would look awful, and it would be impossible – it would cost $1 billion instead of $160 million.” Zemeckis felt that such a version would rob the audience of the art style of the book which he felt was “so much a part of the emotion of the story”. The two acquired the rights to the book the following year. In order to keep his vision a new process was created by which actors would be filmed with motion capture equipment in a black box stage which would then be animated to make the resulting film. Hanks stated that this method of working was “actually a return to a type of acting that acting in films does not allow you to do”, comparing the process to performing a play in the round. The idea of a Scrooge puppet was conceived when Zemeckis looked at his childhood toys, one of which was a puppet.

Hanks plays five roles in the film including that of a small child (whose voice would later be dubbed in by Daryl Sabara). Initially Zemeckis considered having him play every role, but after trying this, Hanks grew exhausted, and they whittled down the number. Principal photography of the motion-capture sequences began in June 2003, and wrapped in May 2004.

The soundtrack of the film, titled The Polar Express: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, was released on November 2, 2004, by Reprise Records, Warner Music Group and Warner Sunset Records. The song, “Believe” was written by Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri and was nominated for Best Original Song at the 77th Academy Awards. It was sung at the 77th Academy Awards show by original performer Josh Groban with Beyoncé and won a Grammy Award in 2006.

The album was certified Gold by the RIAA in November 2007. Having sold 724,000 copies in the United States, it is the best-selling film soundtrack/holiday album hybrid since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking music sales in 1991.

Most of the original orchestral score featured in the film was not released on the soundtrack and has never been released. The soundtrack mostly comprises only songs featured in the film. A limited number of promotional “For Your Consideration” CDs, intended to showcase the film’s score to reviewers of the film, were released in 2005. This CD contained nearly the complete score, but none of the film’s songs. Various bootleg versions of the soundtrack, combining both the official soundtrack album and the orchestral-only CD, have since surfaced.

Much more at the link, including an interesting architectural side-note I hadn’t known about before.

The buildings at the North Pole in the film represent an earlier era in American railroading. Building design drew inspiration from the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago, home of a railroad car manufacturer, the Pullman Company.

Huh, how ’bout that. Anyways, on to the embed.

Having grown up with Charlie Brown, the Grinch, and various other 60’s Christmas TV special classics—not to mention the all-time greatest Christmas flick, Capra’s unforgettable It’s A Wonderful Life—I didn’t think all that highly of Polar Express the first time I saw it. I mean, the animation was amazing, the musical numbers were incredibly well-done, the story was cute enough, but still, my all-in-all reaction was just kind of…MEH. But after repeated viewings it did grow on me, and now I very much dig it.

Walk gently on Mother Earth

CHRIST, what a muttonhead.

Should I Stop Flying? It’s a Difficult Decision to Make.

Yes. Yes, you absolutely should, immediately. Every minute you dither makes Mother Gaia cry, you know.

Four years ago, during a Zoom work meeting, a colleague who lives in London told me she’d decided to quit flying on airplanes. She simply couldn’t stomach the cost to the climate. Due to her decision, she said calmly, she would probably never visit the U.S. again. My heart skipped a beat.

Her choice seemed so extreme. She shared it with me casually in the context of conversation, without a trace of judgment or moralizing. Still, I felt shocked and inexplicably a little defensive—but also intrigued. At the time, I traveled by air as often as ten times a year for my work as a journalist and to see family members strewn about the country. I couldn’t imagine my life without flying.

But my colleague’s comment lodged in my mind as a beautiful and challenging seed. Over the next few years, it cracked through the concrete of what had been, until then, a completely unexamined belief in my inviolable entitlement to flying. When the pandemic arrived, grounding travelers and shrinking international air travel by 60 percent in 2020, I began to see that significantly reducing air travel—or even giving it up altogether—was absolutely possible.

Rare individuals have chosen not to fly for ethical reasons for decades, but in the years leading up to the pandemic, the smattering of outliers coalesced into a movement. It took root most quickly and deeply in Sweden, which in 2017 became the first country in the world to establish a legally binding carbon-neutrality target—a year before Greta Thunberg began protesting in front of its parliament. In Swedish, the movement became known as flygskam, which translates to “flight shame,” a term commonly attributed to Swedish singer Staffan Lingberg, who gave up flying in 2017.

The number of people pledging to stop flying grew so much that Swedish air travel declined 5 percent between 2018 and 2019, and the movement strengthened in other parts of Europe as well. In the U.S., the flight-free movement, in the form of groups like Flight Free USA and No Fly Climate Sci, has been slower to spread but is growing. This year, Flight Free USA, for example, is on track to see the largest number of pledges to stop or minimize flying at 436. By comparison, tens of thousands have pledged in Europe over the past four years.

Well, an admiring pat on the head for all those Neo-Luddite lackwits, then. But y’all should by no means stop there. Ditch your cars, your houses, your modern appliances, any clothing you didn’t sew with your own two pwecious widdle hands. Throw out your computer, your tablet, and your sail foam, all of which are made of plastic derived from *gasp!!!* fossil fuels. No more mass transit, either, most of which consists of either gas or diesel-engined buses or electric trains and/or subways which rely on a mostly coal-burning power grid.

Squatting in your dark, freezing-cold cave to cook over an open fire? Perish FORBID! When I think of the miasma of planet-killing pollutants spewed into our fragile atmosphere by such unnecessary indulgences, I can but weep. Small-scale agriculture? Non: cow farts, plus plants have feewings too, you know. Composting? Nein: that is just soooo 2010; you should be scooping, bagging, and eating your own poo like more enlightened pyrsynz are doing. Travel/commuting by horseback? Nyet, nyet, NYET: animal cruelty, you heartless, soulless monster, amongst a whole slew of other objections.

Criminy, but these navel-gazing, sanctimonious handwringers really make my hair hurt sometimes.

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Noteworthy anniversary

My, how far we’ve come in 250 years. In precisely the wrong direction, alas.

They came like torches in the night, swarming over the sides of the three ships anchored in Griffin Harbor: the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver. Their faces were painted black, red, and copper from lamp soot and paint, bodies wrapped in blankets or wearing “old frocks, red woollen caps, gowns, and all manner of like devices.”

Axes pecked away at locks. Three hundred and forty wooden crates were cracked, scalped, and gutted, their 92,000 pounds of black powdered innards thrown into the water, turning it dark. After three hours, it was over. The only piece of personal property destroyed during the exercise was a padlock belonging to one of the captains, and this was replaced the next day.

The Boston Tea Party — which occurred 250 years ago this Dec. 16 — may not have been the spark that ignited the American Revolution, but it set the pieces up for the great conflict. Because of the tea’s destruction, Parliament retaliated throughout 1774 with the Coercive Acts.

Ironically, the British forged the very spirit that would ultimately defeat them in 1781.

Although only a prelude to the Revolution, the Boston Tea Party still has pertinent lessons for us today, especially in our specific moment. Like today, Americans 250 years ago faced an openly hostile government, much stronger than they were, and it was determined to prove its dominion over the colonies regardless of cost. The specifics have changed, but the familiar beats can be distinctly heard.

Follows, four lessons from the past that contemporary Americans must heed, of which I consider Numero Uno to be the most apposite.

The first lesson is to fight intelligently. When we think of the revolution, we think of the Spirit of ’76, the Minutemen at Lexington, Washington crossing the Delaware. We think of marches and speeches and flags defiantly waving. But 12 whole years of organization, planning, and activities came before the first actual line of resistance formed on Lexington Green.

Viewed in the rearview with the usual 20/20 hindsight, history has a way of compressing itself so that years of effort, dedication, and sacrifice look to contemporary eyes as if they occurred one after another, over mere days or, at most, weeks. But y’all know what I always say: a process, not an event. Civil War v1.0 didn’t just suddenly explode into being in 1860; the sparks which lit off that deadly conflagration go back to 1852, at the very least.

T’was ever thus, with every shooting war you care to cite: the origins of WW2 go back to the early 1930s—most modern historians argue its roots can be traced all the way back to 1918’s Treaty of Versailles, actually. Likewise, the Vietnam War did NOT kick off in Pleiku Province in 1965; its bitter seed was planted one heck of a lot further back as well. The 9/11/01 attacks? The crowning achievement of a conflict whose first shot was fired in 1993, themselves just two latter-day atrocities in a 1500-year-old struggle.

A process. NOT an event. It can be frustrating to look around at the massive buckets of shite being dumped over Real American heads by a rogue, clearly Constitutionally-illegitimate government and perceive little to no action being undertaken by true patriots in resistance. When viewed through the long, long lens of history, though, a decent argument can be made that the time is not yet ripe.

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Citadel of shite

Clogged to overflowing with the very worst sort of bipedal turds.

As you may recall, on January 6th 2021, I was on air with Tucker as the alleged “storming of the Capitol” was drawing to a close. It was not yet over, but the media had already agreed the Official Narrative – that it was a shameful violation of the most hallowed precincts of “the Citadel of Democracy”. I got sick of that shtick almost instantly:

Mark Steyn rips media’s ‘citadel of democracy’ framing of Capitol: ‘It’s a citadel of crap’

Ah, but I was wrong. It turns out it’s a Citadel of Shags. Headline from The Daily Caller:

EXCLUSIVE: Senate Staffer Caught Filming Gay Sex Tape In Senate Hearing Room

Er, don’t hit the link unless you enjoy that sort of thing. If you think “Filming Gay Sex Tape” is just the usual teasing click-bait for a bit of lame-o soft-focus light-petting, not at all. It’s definitely Not Safe For Work, although evidently it’s safe for government work, as the Senate staffer in question had no qualms about uploading it to the Internet. The setting is the table of the Hearing Room of the Senate Judiciary Committee. That would be the room where Brett Kavanaugh was grilled, and FBI straight-shooter James Comey testified at length and with an impressively straight face about the “Russia investigation”. I have also testified at the US Senate, but can’t remember if it was that room or another. Still, if I’m ever asked back, I’ll remember to bring a couple of moist towelettes to wipe down the furniture.

So, if I understand the social norms of the People’s House, it’s completely unacceptable (and, indeed, a crime) to wander its precincts goofily with a MAGA hat and an American flag; but, if you stop for ten minutes to have anal sex before the Supreme Court nominee hearing re-convenes, that’s perfectly fine – so fine it might be worth entering it in mitigation and getting a couple of years knocked off your sentence. You will get a serious prison term if you put your feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, but not if you climb on, get down on hands and knees, and um…

Useful to know.

The staffer in question, an aide to Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, one Aidan Maese-Czeropski, responded indignantly on LinkedIn:

This has been a difficult time for me, as I have been attacked for who I love…

In fairness, he was mostly attacked not “for who I love” but for where he loves him. Nevertheless, I assumed that this defence would prove effective – and that no Washington bigshot would dare to pink-slip a gay guy for getting caught being gay. Besides, in the broader sense, in a decadent pseudo-republic with no equality before the law, it seems entirely natural that some citizens rot in gaol merely for passing half-an-hour ambling aimlessly around the People’s House—and other, more favoured citizens can with impunity roger like billy-ho on the very People’s Table that determines the composition of the highest court in the land. The symbolism is too perfect.

Ain’t it, though. Ain’t it just. It’s Steyn, so you know what you must do, Glasshoppa.

Hitting the wrong target

Spurred on by this comment, I’m finally getting around to clearing out another one of those long-open tabs.

How Right-Wing Characters Become Sitcom Sensations

In spite of all the worst intentions of Hollywood shitlib producers and/or writers like Norman Lear, who thought he had himself a horse of a very different color in his overbroadly-drawn, intentionally-insulting caricature of what clueless pricks like him think your average Joe Lunchbucket is really like, that’s how.

Y’know, kinda like when a hoplophobic Leftard who’s never knowingly been in the same room with a firearm starts in regurgitating the nonsense they’ve gulped down about projectile weapons to some gun-savvy 2A individual, thereby unwittingly making a complete fool of Zhim/Xhrr/Theyselves without ever even realizing it.

If you’ve ever seen the television show Friends, you know that it’s about six young people in Manhattan, navigating romance, career, and friendships. Or is it? Maybe it’s actually about a homeless psychotic woman—the character of Phoebe, played by Lisa Kudrow—who peers into the window of the hip coffee joint and imagines the lives and adventures of the personalities she spies on, with herself as a beloved member of the group of friends. It’s all in her mind, all 10 seasons, and the theory is given a little bit of ballast by the series finale, in which the other characters move out of Manhattan and leave Phoebe alone, like the unmedicated schizophrenic she is.

According to this particular fan theory, anyway. Probably not what the creators and executive producers of the show had in mind, but if you think about it long enough, it starts to seem possible—maybe even preferable to the original.

Google the words “alternate interpretation of” or “fan theory for” and then insert the title of a popular movie or television show, and you’ll get a cascade of hilarious and often very dark results. It seems that people who love a show also love rethinking it from an entirely unexpected point of view.

If your show is indelible enough to inspire lunatic speculations from superfans, that’s what we in show business call “a high-class problem.” One of the ways you know you have a hit show on your hands is that your viewers quickly take ownership of the series. The characters become their characters, and whatever point the creators were trying to make, whatever message they were trying to send, utterly evaporates in the face of that kind of devoted fandom.

If you’re really lucky, this happens while your show is still on the air.

I noticed the same odd phenomenon in my own show-biz career: a fan would painstakingly explain to me after the show all about how the lyrics of a song he or she absolutely loved meant this, or that, or the other thing…and the interpretation would be at wide variance every time with what my actual intention was when I wrote the damned thing.

Eventually, I learned to just accept it and nod, shake the person’s hand, and mumble “Thagsverrmudge” in my best Fat Elvis voice, then move on to the next in line. Whatever a song was supposed to have been in the beginning, once it’s been released into the wild and audiences get hold of it the song is no longer exclusively your intellectual property—it’s now shared between you as the songwriter, the band you perform the song onstage with, and the audience, all of whom are assuredly going to exercise their right to make of your creation what they will.

I wasn’t at all bothered by this puzzling development myself, just considered it one of those strange, bemusing knuckleballs life tends to throw at you as a working artist in The Biz. You just gotta roll with it; who knows, the audience could well be righter about it than you know. But in the case of shitlibs like Lear, it can come back to bite ‘em on the ass in ways they never imagined it might.

In the early 1970’s, All in the Family captured the tumultuous controversies of its time. The show’s main character, Archie Bunker, was a reactionary bigot always mixing it up with his progressive, liberal son-in-law, Meathead. The show was designed by the producer Norman Lear to be a form of left-wing agitprop that would expound on the virtues of the younger, modern, and open-minded generation while exposing and mocking the petty small-minded prejudices of Archie. He would rail weekly against the changing American culture using scandalously edgy language that today is utterly unthinkable. Archie Bunker was supposed to be the butt of the joke, the dinosaur heading to extinction, a symbol of everything that was wrong with America in 1970.

The fans, though, refused to see it that way.

Archie Bunker caught fire with audiences. He became a national sensation, his catchphrases on T-shirts and lunch boxes and used in Johnny Carson monologues. The progressive writers and creators of the show may have thought Archie was the bad guy, but the audience saw a hard-working veteran who paid the bills and put food on the table—Archie held down two jobs!—all the while being forced to listen to his ultra-lefty layabout jobless graduate-student son-in-law tell him what a terrible person he was, often with his mouth full of a pork chop Archie had paid for. If Archie occasionally refers to Jews, African Americans, and homosexuals with hateful slurs, well, hey, the guy pays the mortgage. He’s earned the right to rant a little.

It helped that Archie was, by far, the most hilarious character on television at the time. Comedy writers, even really really liberal ones, naturally want to write for the character who brings the most heat to the screen. The more talented the writer, in fact, the more likely it is that he will sell out his principles for a really solid laugh. Still, it must have rankled Lear and his team to see Archie embraced by the audience, to realize that the character wasn’t theirs anymore—that the fans preferred their own version.

Had Google existed back then, and had you Googled “insane theory about All in the Family,” you’d probably be directed to something like this: “All in the Family is a show about a guy who dreams of being an empty-nester with his devoted wife but who instead is forced to support his married daughter and her lazy, super-woke husband. To get them to move into a place of their own, he does everything he can to drive them away, including loudly emitting a fusillade of reactionary notions. But the kids, especially his worthless son-in-law, are too lazy to move.”

Hollywood liberals keep making the same mistake. They try to create a right-wing villain and end up writing an audience favorite.

And you just know it’s gotta burn their asses up but GOOD. Sure hope so, at any rate.

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Well, well, well, well, WELL

Now we know why they’re so desperately trying to get him locked up and out of sight, on whatever flimsy pretext they can conjure.


Update! Screengrab of the Poso Tweet, in case it doesn’t show up properly for ya above.

“Raising alarms among intel officials.” Yeah, I just bet it did at that, the fucking pond scum. Heartfelt apologies to any gobs of green slime afloat on small bodies of water who might take offense at the comparison.

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THAT’S how you do it!

Effing BRILLIANT.

Good on you, sir. Via WRSA. Backstory and further details here.

Update! Ruminations on the Cassidy saga from Bayou Peter.

Speaking as a Christian and a retired pastor, I entirely approve of Mr. Cassidy’s actions. I would have contributed to his legal defense fund, except that it was shut down within three hours due to being oversubscribed. Clearly, many Americans feel the same as I do about him, which pleases me.

On Tuesday, “Gov. Kim Reynolds called the display ‘absolutely objectionable’ but said that ‘in a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech’.” I agree with him, of course. Freedom of religion is constitutional, and should remain so. Equally, Mr. Cassidy is, IMHO, correct that any of the Founding Fathers, confronted with the same display, would do as he did, or take even stronger action. The Satanic Temple can protest all it likes that it doesn’t actually worship Satan as he is described in the Christian Bible, but is rather an atheist organization using that name. Nevertheless, the generally accepted understanding of Satan in all three of the great monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – is as the root of all evil, a being from whom grace and goodness are utterly absent. They need not be surprised if people act on that understanding.

Most of all, I applaud Mr. Cassidy for his honesty. He acted, then took responsibility for his actions, and is prepared to stand trial for acting on his beliefs. Good for him! If his legal defense fund opens up again, I’ll be standing in line to contribute.

Much more at the link, all of it intriguing, thought-provoking stuff, as is BRM’s usual wont.

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Best think again

During Sporty Time, one can reasonably expect that the cops and/or soldiery will join up with the side of Righteousness and refuse to shoot their fellow Americans at the behest of an illegitimate, tyrannical government, right?

Right?!?

Yeah, about all that.

As if. The civilians who were threatened with force, or subjected to force, by American troops would like to have a word:

  • 1791: The Whiskey Rebellion
  • 1863: The New York City Draft Riots
  • 1877: Great Railroad Strike in 1877
  • 1932: The Bonus Army
  • 1957: Desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
  • 1962: Desegregation of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi
  • 1963: Desegregation of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
  • 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama
  • 1967 Detroit Riots
  • 1967: Newark Riots
  • 1968 King assassination riots in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
  • 1970 New York City Postal Strike in 1970
  • 1980 Cuban Refugee Crisis
  • 1989 Hurricane Hugo
  • 1992: Los Angeles Riots
  • 1993: Branch Davidians in Waco

As long a list as that is, DM still left off a few, to include Kent State in 1970 (“four dead in Ohio,” as sung/groaned by execrable über-shitlib Neal Dung) and the 5-0 bombing and burning of the MOVE HQ in Philly in 1985 which destroyed a city block entire, among others.

Update! DM commenter Big Ruckus D nails down the grim, gruesome reality.

And note that presently there’s all this talk of the invaders being tapped as new troops in exchange for citizenship. I maintain they don’t even need to recruit those, as there are plenty of bonafide Americans already serving who will obey an order to fire on other American civilians, and I suspect there are many who will do so with a certain amount of relish. The idea that wouldn’t happen is a pipe dream, and flies in the face of observable human nature. The only rights anyone truly has are the ones they are willing to kill a motherfucker who is infringing on them over. Everything else is mere words on paper and mental masturbation to guard against acknowledging unpleasant realities.

Pretty much, yeah. Tonight’s Eyrie outing, to be posted in a short (so it is written, so it shall be done), touches on this, if somewhat obliquely.

Yeah, NO

Old soldiers may never die, but some of them ought at least to have the decency to just fade away.

Petraeus says Israel should try U.S.-style counterinsurgency in Gaza
CARLISLE, Pa. – Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, who led a surge of U.S. troops and shifted Iraqi militia alliances to help turn the tide of the Iraq War, now says a similar, counterinsurgency-based approach could work for the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The former CIA director, who was later tasked with stabilizing the Afghanistan War, spoke on Nov. 30 at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center near the home of the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, following the October release of the book “Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine,” which he co-authored with military historian Andrew Roberts.

Shifting his attention to the current Israel-Hamas War, Petraeus said the “big idea” Israel has landed on is destroying Hamas. But how that happens and what comes next remain unresolved.

Petraeus, who said he has ongoing discussions with interlocutors in the Middle East, claimed that Israel has determined Hamas is the equivalent of the Islamic State, meaning it is an irreconcilable, extremist organization.

“You have to, therefore, destroy them,” Petraeus said. Israel cannot allow Hamas to reconstitute as a militant group and it also must dismantle the group’s political wing, he argued, adding that military force alone won’t accomplish that goal.

“But there are some big ideas missing,” Petraeus said. “You can’t kill or capture your way out of an industrial strength insurgency.” The Hamas challenge echoes what U.S. forces faced in Iraq and Israel should take a similar approach, he said.

“The campaign should be a counterinsurgency campaign,” Petraeus said. “Don’t clear and go on. Clear, hold and build.”

Oh goody, more nation-building! That’s always worked out SO well, every time it’s been tried. Well, the exceptions being Germany and Japan post-WW2, I suppose. But then neither of those two nations bears even a slight resemblance to the Mooselimb-run Shitholistans of the world, so there’s also that.

Either way, I do think it’s just sooo cute how Betrayus thinks anybody still gives a flying fuck what he has to say about anything at all, or even should. This Jason Dempsey fella seems to have the right of it.

Jason Dempsey, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Military Times, “the only lesson on COIN that we as Americans have to offer or should be offering, is that one, we didn’t do it very well.”

Annnnnd bingo. Trying to sell peace, love, and democracy to nump-brained savages who hate that shit like the cancer is, was, and ever shall be nothing but a mug’s game.

The feel-good story of the week month year decade century

GOD, how I love this. Who says there’s no good news anymore?

1930s Luxury Vehicle Going Into Production Again?
Packard Motors, an American luxury automobile company that first produced automobiles in 1899, is on the verge of manufacturing vehicles in Ohio.

One of the “Three Ps” – alongside Peerless Motor Company and Pierce-Arrow – the Packard Motor Car Company gained a reputation for building high-quality luxury automobiles pre-WWII.

“Owning a Packard was considered prestigious, and surviving examples are found in museums, car shows, and automobile collections,” Wikipedia writes.

“Packard vehicles featured innovations, including the modern steering wheel, air-conditioning in a passenger car, and one of the first production 12-cylinder engines, adapted from developing the Liberty L-12 engine used during World War I to power warplanes,” it added.

“The handmade vehicles were exported in record numbers to Europe and competed successfully with Rolls Royce and Mercedes Benz,” Cleveland.com states.

“After surviving two world wars and the swings of the auto market, the last true Packard rolled off the assembly line on June 25, 1956. The company closed in 1958 after a failed strategic takeover of Studebaker Corporation,” Packard Motors writes.

Now, a 1934-style convertible could bring the company back to life.

If I could just live long enough to see one of these beautiful beasts rolling down the highway, I could die a happy man. Further details here, including several pics. This is pretty danged cool too:

Andrews collaborated with his friend, Steve Constantino, on the prospect of building new versions of 1930s Packards.

“They found a company in Nebraska that makes all the parts for those particular vehicles. Andrews researched and now owns the legal rights to the Packard brands, patents and trademarks, which was a major step in moving forward,” Cleveland.com writes.

Lastly but by no means leastly:


Of course the new Packard will be far, far out of my pitiful price range, but who cares? Such a vision of loveliness is its own reward, even when the beauty is beheld from afar.

Creepy AF update! And within mere minutes of posting the above, what should arrive in my email inbox but an ad from eBay headlined thusly: Under the hood: An ice-making Land Cruiser and Cadillac Woody, offering all kinds of car paraphernalia for sale, from the aforementioned 56 Cadillac View Master resto to chrome mags to race-driving gear to you name it. Why, if I didn’t know better I’d think I was being watched by somebody or something.

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“Elites” vs the rest of us

So recidivist crackhead, First Bagman, and general scumwad (with apologies to all wads of scum insulted by the invidious comparison to this lowlife) Hunter Bribem showed up today, but not in response to any House subpoena. Ohhhh, no.

Instead, Hunter skipped the deposition and called a whiny, self-indulgent press conference in which he repeated the Democrat talking points that Joe Biden is clean as a whistle and never got involved in his business dealings. 

“They belittled my recovery, and they have tried to dehumanize me, all to embarrass my father, who has devoted his entire life to public service,” he said. How noble. He’s a regular Dr. Phil success story. Of course, “they” refers to the “unrelenting Trump attack team.” Seriously.

He even claimed that the Republicans don’t want to hear the truth because the hearings would take place in private. The truth, of course, is that Hunter wanted the opportunity to grandstand on camera. 

Hunter Biden must believe he’s going to get away with it. He’s the president’s son, for crying out loud, so why wouldn’t he get away with making a mockery of Congress and the rule of law?

We used to always hear that the tension in society was between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Now we know that the two sides are different: the elite versus the rest of us.

The Biden crime family, the mainstream media, and other elements of the elite want nothing more than to keep all the power for themselves. There’s one weapon that we have on our side — the truth. And there’s strength in numbers. If we can band together to counter the elite’s narrative with the truth, the elite will have a harder time spinning its lies.

T’ain’t necessarily so; I can think of at least one other weapon we have, actually. It’s what you might call a use-it-or-lose-it deal, although it’s also one hell of a lot more effective than “the truth” backed by nothing more than verbiage when it comes to reaching out and touching someone from a ways off.

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