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Thinkers vs Repeaters

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Mike

David Solways ponders Great Schism v2.0.

On Politics, Evil, and Stupidity
In a lengthy interview with Tucker Carlson, the controversial but rather impressive Andrew Tate suggested that the standard political distinction between Left and Right, liberal-progressivist and conservative, is not in itself the polarity that explains the culture wars we are undergoing or the social divide that is tearing apart our countries. The distinction, he argues, is between people who think and people who don’t, or as he put it, between “the thinkers and the repeaters.” It’s between those who endeavor to acknowledge reality — for example, that there are two and only two biological sexes or that Socialism, as defined by Thomas DiLorenzo in “The Problem with Socialism,” is “the biggest generator of poverty the world has ever known” — and those who merely repeat the ideological sedatives of the day or the tectonic lies that have become the trademark of the so-called legacy media. Tate should know. He is one of the prime victims of rampant and unscrupulous media disinformation.

But the schism goes even deeper than Tate’s antitheses. Quite bluntly, however problematic or elusive the definition of the concept may be, it has to do with the question of what we call “evil,” which has always resisted a definitive answer. In the moral structure of Judeo-Christian civilization, evil is theologically and philosophically understood as a rupture in the creation of the inhabited universe, the existence of groundless or unprovoked pain and suffering, or the handiwork of the Devil, as the early Christian Gnostics believed. Especially in the human world, evil is construed as the perennial tendency to lie or suppress observable truth, to cause harm for personal advantage, to inflict gratuitous suffering, and to bring misery and destruction upon whole societies in the interests of unworkable theory, unprovable assumptions, vaunting ambition, or what Samuel Taylor Coleridge, psychoanalyzing Shakespeare’s Iago, called “motiveless malignity.”

Admittedly, it is often hard to distinguish between perduring evil and “repeater” stupidity, between people who act with malice aforethought to deceive or injure others and those who clearly evince a deficiency of intelligence, doing harm unintentionally, going with the turbid flow, and embracing realistically implausible or absurd ideas and practices. Stupid is as stupid does.

“When stupid people are at work,” writes Carlo Cipolla in The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, “the society as a whole is impoverished.” The damage is more than likely to be irreparable. “A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person,” he concludes, though an evil person will give a stupid person a run for his money. We might better say that stupid people are the readily accessible prey of evil people. An infallible sign of a stupid person is the susceptibility to programming and propaganda — what Mike Adams calls an “obedience idiot.”

Or what, in AA parlance, is known as an “enabler.” Be that as it may, the Stupid and the Evil are co-dependents: ie, each relies on the other for affirmation, endorsement, and support both practical and *shudder* moral. They are in effect indivisible, thus leaving any attempt to distinguish between them an exercise in picking the fly shit out of the pepper—a mug’s game, worse than a waste of time.

As a bonus, Solway also throws in Einstein’s cogent observation: There is a major difference between intelligence and stupidity; intelligence has its limits. True, dat. But seeing as how the end result of the collaboration betwixt the Stupid and the Evil is reliably the same—advancement of the Evil agenda—then they should all hang together, in a manner of speaking.

Betcha didn’t know THIS

Posted on July 18, 2023July 18, 2023 by Mike

Borepatch links to one of his golden oldies (from 2011, no less) that’s just chock-full of fascinating stuff.

We have quite good records of sunspot activity going back to 1700 A.D. We have decent records of the price of wheat going back much further – pretty good ones to 1500 A.D., and sporadic records all the way back to 1250 A.D. (!). The reason is that bread is the staff of life – no bread, and people starved.

In short, grain prices are a pretty good proxy for climate, in the days before thermometers. Certainly better than, say, bristle cone pine tree rings. This is important for two reasons, and the combination is very bad news indeed for people who cling to the “Carbon Dioxide is killing Mother Gaia” theory.

First, the price of grain and the number of sunspots have been known to be very closely correlated for hundreds of years. William Herschel (who discovered the planet Uranus) first published this, back around 1800. When there are a lot of sun spots, he said, the price of grain is low – harvests are good. When there are few sun spots, harvests fail and the price of grain soars.

Remember, we have records on this that are so old that this has been known for literally hundreds of years. You might say that, err, the Science is Settled.

To understand why this is so incredibly bad for the warmist crowd, you need to compare and contrast with the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (Carbon Dioxide heating the planet). The theoretical underpinning of AGW predicts a warm zone in the mid-Troposphere (say, 8 miles up or so) in the tropics. Essentially, this is a heat pump that cycles captured heat from the increased Greenhouse effect down to lower atmospheric levels (rather than radiating out to space).

The only problem is that with maybe a million weather balloons looking for the hot spot, nobody’s found it.

BP carries on from there, and it’s…well, like I said, it’s fascinating. Among other notable things, the piece utterly demolishes the persistent shitlib tomfoolery insisting on CO2 as the primary cause of all climatological woes, piece by piece and bit by bit, until not a single molecule of that mythology remains viable. The Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ hoax is explained in plain, non-obfuscatory language which doesn’t require a hard-sciences doctorate to comprehend. As Borepatch so pithily puts it: The whole edifice was constructed from cardboard and tape, and anyone could see that it was wrong.

Elegantly written; brilliantly conceived; meticulously researched; reliant entirely on actual, for-real science instead of the usual shitlib Pseudo variety, with politicking left entirely out of the mix for once and a solid dollop of historical fact thrown in for additional backup—with sincere apologies to the fine folks at Watt’s Up With That, who have been doing yeoman’s work on the subject for many years now, this is without doubt the best, most comprehensive yet concise treatise on the subject I’ve ever seen. BP has an equally-stellar (of an even older vintage, namely 2009) companion piece here.

You mustn’t miss a single word of this one, folks—both the linked posts, really, they’re good, good stuff. Taken altogether, they add up to all the debunking of the AGW hoax you’ll ever need. Bravo, Borepatch, and well done indeed.

Update! Fool that I am, it just hit me like a pie in the face that Watt’s Up is in neither my browser bookmarks nor Ye Aulde CF Blogrolle. Error corrected, with further red-faced apologies to WUWT for the reconkulous oversight.

The biggest question

Posted on July 18, 2023July 18, 2023 by Mike

To ask is to answer.

There is one fundamental question that any candidate vying for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2024 must answer — but that as of yet has gone largely unaddressed, at least publicly, as the field spars over significant but ultimately subordinate issues.

The question is this: How will you win the general election under the present voting system?

A: Unless he’s a Deep State-approved Vichy GOPe collaborator/co-conspirator, he won’t.

As Americans well know, we are lightyears removed from the election days of old — singular days when people voted in person, on paper ballots, after presenting identification. Now, we have mass mail-in elections, conducted over weeks, where those voting in person often do so on electronic machines, and with lax identification standards.

Democrats largely developed and long fought for this system, willing it into existence under the cover of Covid-19. Naturally, they have successfully manipulated and exploited the voting regime they made.

Ballot harvesting is becoming an accepted norm. Candidates not only have to earn votes but figure out how to collect as many votes as they possibly can. Are Republicans overnight going to out-harvest their opponents, or figure out some new means to identify and turn out voters otherwise sitting on the sidelines in sufficient numbers to overcome Democrats’ ballot-harvesting superiority?

The Biden administration is working to leverage federal agencies to mobilize presumed Democrat voters as well — also potentially in conjunction with the same NGOs — under a March 2021 executive order, “Promoting Access to Voting,” that has remained shrouded in mystery as the bureaucracy stonewalls over inquiries about its implementation. Republicans have started to engage in election administration, but largely in the context of monitoring over execution. What is the plan to combat Democrat control over election machinery?

Lawfare is also now an integral part of our election system. Republicans have started to devote significantly greater attention and resources to the litigation game, but to catch up to Democrats will require a long-term, sustained effort, backed with real money. And filing suit over election policies and practices after votes have already been cast of course has proven a losing proposition, as demonstrated by courts’ unwillingness to grapple with fundamental issues around the 2020 election largely on technical grounds.

Meanwhile, Democrats have engaged in efforts to ruin the lives of Republican election lawyers — in their own words to “make them toxic in their communities and in their firms” — seeking to kneecap their competition before it ever reaches the courtroom.

Are Republican candidates devising comprehensive election lawfare strategies right now to both aggressively target existing election chicanery and stave off that which is to come — with the courage and intellectual heft behind it needed to win in the face of an unrelenting and calculating opposition?

These in-built challenges exist before even discussing election fraud, and the imperative for a Republican candidate to exhaust every available means to prevent it, and in the absolute worst case to detect and mitigate it — this at a time when voting happens at further remove from the election booth than ever before, making finding and proving fraud all the more difficult.

Layer on top of these issues the broader forces any such candidate will be up against, and the prospect of winning becomes even more daunting.

Aw, even with all that, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait til they’ve finally achieved their longstanding dream of eliminating the Electoral College once and for all, that’s when the REAL fun starts.

Try that in a small town

Posted on July 18, 2023July 18, 2023 by Mike

A tip of the CF Stetson (not that I actually HAVE one, unnerstand) to country crooner Jason Aldean, for telling it like it is.

Jason Aldean’s Rocking Country Song ‘Try That in a Small Town’ Makes Liberal Heads Explode, He Claps Back
Country music star Jason Aldean dropped a song in May, but it seems like a memo went out among the liberal press because they’re suddenly freaking out that it slams woke blue violent cities and the 2020 George Floyd riots while daring to honor gun ownership and small-town values. Ooh, can’t do that.

Here are the lyrics for the first two verses (all caps are his from his YouTube posting. Read the rest there):

SUCKER PUNCH SOMEBODY ON A SIDEWALK
CAR JACK AN OLD LADY AT A RED LIGHT
PULL A GUN ON THE OWNER OF A LIQUOR STORE
YA THINK IT’S COOL WELL ACT A FOOL IF YA LIKE
CUSS OUT A COP SPIT IN HIS FACE
STOMP ON THE FLAG AND LIGHT IT UP
YEAH YA THINK YOU’RE TOUGH

WELL TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN
SEE HOW FAR YA MAKE IT DOWN THE ROAD
‘ROUND HERE WE TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN
YOU CROSS THAT LINE IT WON’T TAKE LONG
FOR YOU TO FIND OUT
I RECOMMEND YOU DON’T
TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN

Predictably, the left has gone nuts, accusing Aldean of racism and any other of the usual buzzwords they can come up with…Aldean issued a lengthy response to critics Tuesday afternoon:

In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are not only meritless, but dangerous. There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far.

As so many pointed out, I was present at Route 91-where so many lost their lives- and our community recently suffered another heartbreaking tragedy. NO ONE, including me, wants to continue to see senseless headlines or families ripped apart.

Try That In A Small Town, for me, refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief. Because they were our neighbors, and that was above any differences. My political views have never been something I’ve hidden from, and I know that a lot of us in this Country don’t agree on how we get back to a sense of normalcy where we go at least a day without a headline that keeps us up at night. But the desire for it to- that’s what this song is about.

These days, the Left considers virtually everything they don’t like to be racist or related to White Supremacy. In my view, this rocking song is pointing out that the lawlessness happening in our big cities is simply unacceptable and un-American, and owning a firearm is a First Amendment right. And guess what, folks—he’s allowed to like small-town living; it isn’t a crime.

Well, not yet, anyway. There’s a vid of Aldean’s instant classic at the link if you’re so inclined. Not being a fan of contemporary rock-flavored country music myself it really isn’t my cup of tea, but as always YMMV. What the hell, anything that makes Sniveling Shitlibs weep and wail so lugubriously is a-okay with moi.

Tucker on top

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Mike

Of his game, and the world as well. Just watch the vid and then tell me this guy isn’t having the time of his life.

The crowd ROARS for Tucker: “I don’t think most unemployed people get a reception like that” 🔥
pic.twitter.com/9opzQPeMoZ

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson)

July 15, 2023

Now THAT is one happy man right there. Whodathunkit, eh? Turns out being unceremoniously and gracelessly dumped by the shitlibs at now-faltering Faux News was the best thing that ever happened to him. Good as he always was before, it’s become a real joy to watch the new Tucker Unchained. Good for you, Tucker, you deserve it.

Eyrie up!

Posted on July 18, 2023July 18, 2023 by Mike

The Monday Eyrie post has gone up a day late due to my recent calamitous loss of Internet access, but it can in no way, shape, or form be considered a dollar short. Entitled “Fake phony frauds,” this one covers plenty of ground: from limousine-liberal Bruce Springsteen, to Bob Grant, to Curtis Sliwa, to disgusting blob Al Sharpton, difficult though it might seem to discern any connection betwixt such a, ummm, diverse cast of characters. Preview ‘graphs:

Ah, how well I remember hearing Curtis Sliwa nail infamous shitstain Al Sharpton to the wall on the Bob Grant show with a tape Sliwa had recorded at now-defunct Freddy’s Fashion Mart up in Harlem, featuring the bloated, Marcelle-grease-stained bottom feeder calumnifying “white interlopers” and urging his biddable, low-IQ followers to violence.

Said incitement bore deadly fruit when a mentally-disturbed spook-a-loo and “protest” attendee finally heeded Sharpton’s blatant call to action, walking into Freddy’s carrying a full gas can and a loaded .38 and shooting several people in the course of burning the place to the ground, and leaving several corpses in his wake. Sharpton, of course, had denied ever saying anything at all in his daily “protests” that could possibly be construed as incitement to violence, which was just a bald-faced lie.

And then Sliwa and Grant played, over and over again, the tape which exposed Sharpton as the liar, agitator, and all-round scumbag he always had been. It was beautiful, is what it was. It was beautiful, is what it was—a golden radio moment those of us who were around to hear it will never forget. SIDE NOTE: It was Sharpton’s use of a bullhorn to amplify his exhortations to violent action against Freddy’s that inspired Paul Shanklin to have Conk Boy always speak through one in his note-perfect parodies for the late, lamented Rush Limbaugh show.

And if that doesn’t constitute enough enticement to get you clicking on over to read the rest, I don’t know what on Earth might be.

Update! Humble thanks yet again to CA over at the indispensable WRSA, who has once again blowed up the ol’ Eyrie hit counter with a link, in the process including a most apposite quote:

If you aren’t stopping by Mike’s alternative station on a daily basis, you are missing a lot.

And that’s from a guy who firmly believes (or wants to believe, more likely) that his life was saved by the line from Thunder Road, “It’s a town full of losers and I’m pullin’ out of here to win”.

That would be the Springsteen song, not the classic Robert Mitchum flick, which is going to require another liberal dose of palate cleanser, I’m afraid.

For those who didn’t know already, Thunder Road was pretty much a Robert Mitchum joint entirely: he wrote the script; wrote and sang the title tune; produced it via his production company DRM; and cast his son James as his own character’s younger brother after Col Tom Parker had scotched Elvis Presley, for whom Mitchum had originally written the part. The movie also features a star turn by the delectable Keely Smith, who also sang the movie’s main theme, the haunting “Whippoorwill.”

Keely Smith, a most toothsome babe if I ever did see one, rose to stardom as the confection her real-life husband Louis Prima spent the majority of his onstage time mugging, clowning, and generally hamming it up around, to her bored, eye-rolling indifference. To wit:

Not the best example of what I was talking about, perhaps, but whatevs, I just like the song. There are better examples out there, if you care to look ‘em up. The Prima band was blessed not just with the enormously talented Smith and Louis himself, but with one of the all-time great sax players as well:

Sam Butera (August 17, 1927 – June 3, 2009) was an American tenor saxophonist and singer-songwriter best noted for his collaborations with Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Butera is frequently regarded as a crossover artist who performed with equal ease in both R&B and the post-big band pop style of jazz that permeated the early Vegas nightclub scene.

Butera was born and raised in an Italian-American family in New Orleans, where his father, Joe, ran a butcher shop and played guitar in his spare time. He heard the saxophone for the first time at a wedding when he was seven years old, and, with his father’s encouragement, he began to play.

Butera’s professional career blossomed early, beginning with a stint in big band drummer Ray McKinley’s orchestra directly after high school. Butera was named one of America’s top upcoming jazzmen by Look magazine when he was only eighteen years old, and, by his early twenties, he had landed positions in the orchestras of Tommy Dorsey, Joe Reichman, and Paul Gayten.

As the big band era wound down and heavy touring became less common among jazz musicians, Butera re-settled in New Orleans, where he played regularly at the 500 Club for four years. The 500 Club was owned by Louis Prima’s brother, Leon, and it was this connection that led him to his much-heralded Vegas-based collaborations with Prima and Smith.

Prima transitioned from big band to Vegas somewhat hastily, having signed a contract with the Sahara without having first assembled a back-up band. From his Vegas hotel room, Prima phoned Butera in New Orleans and had him assemble a band posthaste. Butera and the band drove from New Orleans to Las Vegas in such a hurry that they had not taken time to give their act a name. On opening night in 1954, Prima asked Butera before a live audience what the name of his band was. Butera responded spontaneously, “The Witnesses”, and the name stuck.

Butera remained the bandleader of The Witnesses for more than twenty years. During that time, he performed with Louis Prima and/or Keely Smith on such Prima-associated songs as “That Old Black Magic”, “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “Come on-a My House,” and “I Wan’na Be Like You” (from Disney’s The Jungle Book). Richard and Robert Sherman, composers of the songs for the Disney animated film, agreed to cast Prima, Butera and their band after executives from the Walt Disney Company urged them to travel to Las Vegas to witness the band’s live act in person.

Butera is noted for his raucous playing style, his off-color humor, and the innuendo in his lyrics. The arrangement he made with Prima of “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” has been covered by David Lee Roth, Los Lobos, Brian Setzer, The Village People, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. In addition to his accomplishments as a saxophonist and composer, Butera is widely regarded as the inspiration for the vocal style of fellow New Orleans-born jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr.

There, see what I was talking about when I mentioned all those great music-biz stories the other day?

Testing 1…2…1…2…

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Mike

Hey hey hey, looks like we’re back in the Internet business again here at CF CaC. Cool! More to come, folks, stay tuned.

Dezinformatsia

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Mike

Don’t believe a word they say. Not EVER, about ANYTHING.

The theme of the bumbling Russians was clearly preconceived and coordinated, and commenced in earnest within the first 24 hours of hostilities. CIA/MI6 fronts like Oryx, Bellingcat, and the war-mongering Kagan family propaganda mill The Institute for the Study of War have pumped out this narrative so relentlessly that it has now been almost universally enshrined as “received wisdom” in the western state-controlled corporate media and among large numbers of clueless, arms industry-compromised former generals – even to the point of entering into the body of assumptions embraced by many “experts” who I expected to be more discerning.

One of the more inexplicable narratives included in this disinformation package has been the allegation that Russian troops are poorly trained conscripts who are thrown into the meat grinder with antique weapons, little ammo, and so little food they are literally starving.

These tall tales are then woven back into the main strand of the narrative: the Russian army is a disorganized mob of demoralized “orcs” whose only real talent is plundering household appliances, raping young women, and randomly gunning down old folks on the streets.

Attached to this constant refrain are repeated comparisons to the allegedly incomparable professionalism, organization, training, and weaponry of US/NATO forces. The implication is that any undersized company of exceptional American soldiers would be more than a match for an entire oversized battalion of incompetent Russians.

I’ve concluded this unrelenting narrative must have as its aim the persuasion of the general public and policy-makers in NATO countries that western militaries are so vastly superior to their Russian counterparts that no one should entertain reservations about making war against them.

Well, I mean, DUH, of course they’re superior! Drag queens; dumpy, out of shape broads utterly incapable of meeting physical-fitness standards, necessitating continual relaxation of said standards for their benefit; “transgenders” only in it for the free dick-chopping; outdated, poorly maintained equipment and/or vehicles; air-“superiority” fighters that can barely even get off the ground occasionally; PC Wokesterism running rampant throughout the higher ranks; militant feminazi officers demoralizing the grunts under their command by making them parade around in spike heels publicly—C’MON MAN! With all that and more besides going for it, why on earth wouldn’t Amerika v2.0’s military be the most fearsomely powerful fighting force in the entire multiverse, striking terror deep into the hearts of all prospective adversaries?

And with that preface, let’s turn to the primary question: could NATO fight and win a war against the Russians on this same battlefield?

My answer is an emphatic NO – for three distinct but equally disqualifying reasons:

There is zero persuasive evidence that NATO soldiers, weaponry, training, logistics, and command are superior to that of the Russians.

Sufficient NATO forces could NEVER be assembled, equipped, and sustained to defeat the Russians in their own backyard.

The very attempt to concentrate sufficient US forces in the region in order to take on the Russians would very likely result in the disintegration of the global American Empire and its massive network of overseas bases – thereby rapidly accelerating the already-in-progress transition to a multipolar world.

As to point #1 above, it bears repeating what I have argued multiple times in recent weeks: this war has seen the Russian military quickly evolve into a battle-hardened and quick-to-adapt fighting force. The US has not faced such a force since World War II.

Many believe the US is a “battle-hardened” force. This is utter nonsense. Of the many thousands of troops currently manning US combat units, only a minute fraction has experienced ANY battle whatsoever, and NONE have experienced high-intensity conflict such as is taking place in Ukraine.

Honestly, I consider point #3 more feature than bug, myself. Regardless of whether Russia is or is not really All That with a Cherry On Top militarily, unless and until

The US has thoroughly unfucked its own military, and
Its populace has outgrown its girlish squeamishness regarding war in general and evinces the will to not only fight, but to win, and
Its moronic political class is entirely forthcoming about US war aims, and what “winning” might and might not consist of

…Amerika v2.0 has no business whatsoever attempting to wage war against anyone at all, let alone any near-peer nation. Period fucking dot, end of fucking story.

Plenty more dispiriting but incontrovertible stuff in the linked article, all of it every bit as condemnatory of the idiotic notion of further escalating Bribem’s Needless and Futile War as I just was.

(Via WRSA)

Update! Scion of a family with a tradition of military service explains why he’s decided he’ll have none of it, yielding several priceless quotes in the process of so doing.

‘Eroded patriotism’: Teen shares why he now won’t follow in father’s footsteps as military recruiting lags
‘Symphony of sewage’ out of White House deters veteran’s son from military service amid recruitment shortfalls

Aden Gilbert grew up watching war movies, fighting enemy combatants in video games and listening to his dad’s Marine Corps stories. He considered following in his father’s footsteps but changed his mind as he saw the country and its leadership heading in a direction antithetical to his values.

“If we’re prioritizing being woke, and we can’t actually protect the majority of American people . . . what’s the point of having a military?” Gilbert asked Fox News. “Is it really worth joining and putting our life on the line for ideologies that we don’t agree with and that we don’t want to necessarily protect?”

Military children have historically been more likely to serve their country than their peers. Ten years ago, more than a quarter of new recruits had a parent who had served, and around 80% reported having at least one family member who had done so, according to a Pentagon survey.

“It was something that a man of honor would do, to serve and protect his country and serve and protect those values that existed back then,” Gilbert, 18, said. “But I think things are a little bit different now.”

Indeed they are, son. Astute of you to notice.

The military is struggling to fill its ranks as young people like Gilbert forgo service. The Marine Corps and Space Force are the only branches that anticipate meeting their enlistment goals this year. The Army, Navy and Air Force expect to fall a combined 26,000 enlistees short in fiscal year 2023. The Army also fell short in 2022 by about 15,000 soldiers (25% of its goal).

Military officials have pinned much of the blame for lackluster recruitment numbers on a competitive job market and a dwindling pool of qualified applicants. Only 9% of young Americans are interested in serving their country, according to the Department of Defense.

“I would rather tiptoe around literal landmines than have to tiptoe around people’s pronouns,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert has always considered himself a patriot, but said the left has “successfully eroded patriotism” by pushing restrictive laws, “woke” ideology and “celebrating satanic themes in music and Hollywood.”

“It just angers me seeing our president as the conductor of that symphony of sewage,” he added.

You’re by no means alone in that sentiment, me boy. Not by a long yard, you ain’t.

The problem with cities

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Mike

Is that eventually, one way or another, their problems become our problems.

Imploding Cities Will Drag All of Us Down — Even if You Don’t Live Anywhere Near One
There is so much wrong with America’s cities, it’s hard to see why any contributing member of society would live and/or work in one of them. Some of the issues arise from far-Left local governance while others are generated by more widespread Leftist policy. These are coupled with an organic workforce evolution, as the United States transitions from an industry-based to an information-based economy. The result is urban areas caught in a downward spiral — and, as with any sinking vessel, threatening to suck everyone nearby down with them.

First, a quick refresher on the compounding problems of urban areas. Chief among them is that big cities are dark blue, and thus they’ve become crucibles of Left-wing policy failure. Uncontrolled crime, roving drug and mental-illness zombies, and swarms of sanctuary-recipient asylum scammers are crowding out reasonable people and businesses. The normals who remain to take advantage of access to cultural events (such as they are) and restaurant variety are also subject to totalitarian social controls and two-tiered justice systems that punish them when they fight back against criminals. But no matter how desperate the situation becomes, city councils can be counted on to double down on woke policies, then double down again.

Businesses are fleeing. In the ones that remain, shopping for basic goods has become a frustrating exercise in waiting for an associate to unlock the case so you can grab a razor and some toothpaste. Add in today’s high interest rates, which make owning and running a business prohibitively expensive, and the writing is on the wall. PJ Media colleague Rick Moran reported last month that large San Francisco commercial businesses, like hotels and malls, are simply walking away from their obligations, handing the keys to the banks with which their real estate is financed. Concurrently, major retailers are declining to renew leases and are simply closing their doors, unable to break even in an atmosphere where retail theft is encouraged. This process is occurring to some degree in major cities across the country.

While we conservatives point and laugh at the plight of woke cities from the comfort and safety of our suburban and rural homes, we may want to take a moment to consider a sobering issue. The effects of the imminent collapse of the commercial urban real estate market will ripple out across the financial sector and affect just about everyone in one way or another.

Remember the mortgage-backed securities crisis in 2008? And how, even if you didn’t default on your mortgage or didn’t even own a house, the entire economy tipped into what the hyperbolic media tagged “The Great Recession” and we all suffered? So, this would be kind of like that, except the problem will start with a commercial real estate collapse.

Which collapse is happening even as we speak (so to, umm, speak). Real Americans who aren’t shitty-city dwellers have no place they can reasonably expect to find succor, either:

Don’t start daydreaming that we’ll have a Republican president by then who will refuse to bail out imploding cities, either. When you realize that everyone’s pensions are involved, you understand that not bailing out these banks and cities was never going to be an option. They have us over a barrel. So we can expect a cool trillion or two to flow from Big G’s coffers. This, while we are still reeling from the inflation and high interest rates from the last crisis, the Great COVID Overreaction Rescue Plan.

There is much to recommend city life: museums, entertainment, fine dining, varied shopping and cultural experiences, travel hubs, and excellent medical care are all steps away. A large segment of the population prefers such a stimulating and convenient lifestyle, and they would happily live in cities regardless of whether they worked at home. Enterprising landlords could convert less-used office space to living space and continue to run a profitable business. But so long as Soros DAs, activists, and city councilors keep making urban life unlivable, America’s cities will continue to circle the drain. And we’re all going to get sucked down with them.

Too bad, that, and no, it ain’t really fair. It’d be all too easy to assume that, what with the industry and manufacturing that for many years was centered in our large cities now gone the way of the dodo, the cities’ influence over and ability to affect the outlying areas might have diminished a great deal, but it just isn’t the case. As ever-larger numbers of those in a position to do so flee the urban shithole-zones, the rest of us Flyover-Country types will almost certainly be feeling the pain too—and the lamentable tendency of those big-city refugees to vote for the exact same things that ruined their own befouled nests* is only the beginning of it.

* Which tendency may or may not be apocryphal, interestingly enough, according to what you’re reading and who wrote it

Is it tyranny yet?

Posted on July 16, 2023 by Mike

Yes, it most certainly is. The Advanced stage of it, actually; we blew right by the “Intermediate” and “Beginner” levels and left them spinning Wile E Coyote-like in our dust long, long ago.

By operations underway I mean things like mRNA vaccines stealthily deleting kin, friends, and public figures from the scene…decriminalizing crime…undermining the oil industry by a thousand cuts…liquidating small business…making little children insane over sex…flooding the land with illegal immigrants…devaluing the currency…queering elections — all of these things done on purpose, by the way. And if you complain about any of it, here comes the FBI or the IRS knocking on your door.

So, to make sure that a collapse of the USA comes on-schedule, there is the useful fracas created by our government geniuses over in Ukraine that creeps day-by-day toward a quick American assisted suicide. Just to remind you, here’s how that started: In 2014, the US fomented a coup against Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. In short order, the Russian language was banned (despite the fact that Most Ukrainians speak Russian). A piqued Russia re-po’d the Crimean Peninsula. When ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine (the Donbas provinces) tried to go their own way, Ukraine shelled and rocketed them for eight years. That was the setup.

All of the above was absolutely unnecessary, you understand. Ukraine had been going about its business the best it could since 1991 as a shlub nation with an aged-out Soviet infrastructure, some US-sponsored bioweapons labs, and no energy resources. It had been collecting royalties for allowing Russia to run oil pipelines across its fruited plain — of which, a lot of gas was siphoned off in transit by bandits. Ukraine attempted to compensate for its disadvantages by being an international money laundromat, though that only benefited its oligarch class (and the extended “Joe Biden” family).

After “Joe Biden” got “elected” in 2020, and news of his family’s sketchy business activities in Ukraine and elsewhere finally dribbled out, Ukraine was turned into a giant grenade and “JB” (or persons acting on his behalf) pulled the pin. NATO was dragooned into the quarrel as backup against its better judgment. If the objective was to weaken Russia, as stated by one of our strategic geniuses, SecDef Loyd Austin, it didn’t work out. Rather, it exposed the USA as a reckless global psychopath bent on wrecking every country it pretends to help — including the major countries in NATO.

Another good outing from Kunstler which, alas, falls apart in the closing ‘graph.

Anyway, “Joe Biden’s” entire act is unspooling. He is a prank that the Democratic Party played on the American people. Sometime before Halloween he will have to exit the scene in disgrace, gruesome as the prospect might seem, with Kamala Harris anxiously draining vodka bottles as she awaits history’s call at the old Naval Observatory. That will be a fun day in the USA, all righty.

Sorry Jim, ain’t gonna happen; barring Too Old Jaux succumbing to age and general decrepitude, he ain’t going anywhere, and will assuredly be running for re-“election” next year should he live long enough to. The Repugnicants aren’t going to be impeaching his corrupt ass, in spite of an over-abundance of grounds for doing so—and, having grubbed so very desperately for several decades to worm his way into the White House, the notion that he would ever step down of his own volition is self-evidently absurd.

BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Mike

James Woods brings us the feel-good video of the day week year century.

The leftists who glued their hands to runways, ruining the trips of families who work hard all year, discover that they may lose lose their fingers from the process of removing them from the epoxy. I could watch this for hours, heartbroken, of course. pic.twitter.com/UB22LgIWnd

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods)

July 15, 2023

Same here, James, same here. Leftism, like stupidity, ought to be literally, physically painful. And, in this instance, WAS.

What a delightful vid: shitlib idiots shrieking in agony, the prospect of their obnoxious, self-righteous idiocy actually maiming them for life via the loss of their fucking fingers—really now, what’s not to like?

The truth, at last

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Mike

You knew this all along, right?

Climate Expert: Gas Car Cancellation Is Intended to End Private Transport
Soon after a World Economic Forum partner was caught calling for an “end” to private car ownership, a climate expert is warning that the push to cancel gas-powered cars is just a ploy to end private transport. The climate crisis is a hoax, but it’s such a darn useful hoax for authoritarian globalists.

Ain’t it though. Ain’t it just—placing it fully and firmly into the selfsame category as the Scamdemic trial run, according to both type and hype.

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano went on Fox Business Thursday and discussed how the Democrat and globalist push to replace gas cars with electric vehicles (EVs) isn’t about helping the environment but restricting Americans’ freedom of movement. “This really isn’t about them driving an electric car,” Morano said, highlighting how this is a top-down decision not based on popular demand. “This literally is — the banning of gas-powered cars — is being done just like a COVID lockdown without a vote,” he added. From California to the Biden Environmental Protection Agency to Australia, leftists are trying to force ordinary citizens into a corner with their gas car restrictions.

Indeed, Pew Research Center published the results of its new survey on June 28, which found that “Less than half of the [U.S.] public (40%) favors phasing out the production of gas-powered cars and trucks.” It’s also significant that EV batteries actually generate lots of toxic waste, so they’re not better for the environment.

“The intent is not to necessarily force people into an electric vehicle,” Morano went on. “The intent is to collapse our plentiful freedom of movement and force us to use mass transit. They want us on the subway.” It’s a global collusion. “They want us on buses. That is what this is about,” Morano insisted. “[Former UK PM] Boris Johnson’s transportation secretary said owning a car was outdated ’20th-century thinking’. They are rationing vehicle use. It’s very simple. You can look at Cuba to see how that turned out; you are going to have a lot of used cars.”

Which, for those of you keeping score at home, is in pluperfect compliance with Mike’s Iron Law #187, if you care to look it up. Those beat-up, jig-rigged old vintage rides being said workaround, natch. Just as in Cuba, see, which newly-minted sister-state status with the FUSA for Them amounts to a feature, not a bug.

Oh, but the coinkydinkal (HA!) confluence with various of my Iron Laws only multiplies from there, alas. Since we already know, thanks to MIL #149, that it’s never actually about what they’re telling us it is, and also from MIL #4296-54e, addendum 67 that they lie reflexively, compulsively, and continually, the only mystery at this late date is why ANYBODY would trouble themselves with taking their words at face value anymore. That’s the real stumper here, a bona fide brain-buster I for one simply cannot figure out.

Update! Moar Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ follies. Spoiler: it ain’t just your ICE car the illegitimate Bribem junta intends to take from you. Not by a long yard, it ain’t.

Biden Regime Making Americans Sweat, Moves to Make Air Conditioning a Thing of the Past
This one’ll really make your blood boil: with either remarkable tone-deafness or a haughty contempt for the people it’s supposed to be serving, the Biden regime chose some of the hottest days of this summer (and if the climate propaganda is to be believed, some of the hottest days in human history) to announce plans to restrict the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in refrigerators and air conditioners. If the regime’s high-handedness and authoritarianism don’t already have you in a sweat, just wait.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday that it was “issuing a final rule to implement a 40% reduction below historic levels from 2024 through 2028.” So if you’re keeping cool these days with your air conditioner set at a certain temperature, be prepared for our moral superiors to force you, on pain of who knows what, to turn it up significantly. And you won’t be sweating out just this summer alone: “The rule aligns with the bipartisan American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act’s goals to reduce the production and consumption of these climate-damaging chemicals by 85% by 2036 and help avoid up to 0.5 °C of global warming by 2100.”

Bipartisan? Well, that’s another indication of how the establishment Republican hacks in Washington have failed betrayed the American people.

Fixed it for ya there, Robert. No need to thank me, I’m only too happy to help out. A giver, that’s moi.

Cars; gas ranges; guns; charcoal BBQ grills; wood-burning stoves for home heating; your Constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of speech; the Constitution entire—yep, there really is nothing they’re willing to leave alone. Calls for another addition to the Mike’s Iron Laws collection, methinks.

Publick Announcemente

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Mike

Blogging is likely to be disrupted the next cpl-three days due to my modem having been taken out by dint of violence, presumably owing to the godawful storm we had day before yesterday. Said storm was no joke, let me tell ya; I’ve always purely loved a good thunderstorm on a summer afternoon, and this one was a real sockdolager. I was just lounging around on the bed reading when all of a sudden-like there was a blinding flash, with an almighty CRAAACK! near-simultaneous with it, indicating a strike VERY close by. There being a small stand of woods betwixt my place and the street, I assumed there’d be a smoking ruin where once a tall pine had stood.

Which is when my connection to the Innarnuts became a smoking ruin as well. I went into the living room to check the modem, and every light on the little black box was flashing madly, as if to piteously whimper HELP…ME! HELP…ME!

After fruitlessly trying to contact my ISP all day yesterday via their alleged “24-7-365” tech “support” line—Comporium, the local ISP, is renowned amongst all those forced into using them as being one hundred and ten percent not worth a stinking shit, in my experience a reputation which is thoroughly justified*—and getting nowhere, I gave up and resigned myself to having to wait until Monday to see what, if anything, might be done. Meanwhile, I’m using my phone’s Hospot function for internet access.

So yeah, if things should suddenly go dark for a spell here at Ye Aulde Colde Furye Blogge, you’ll know why. I’ll try to dish out all the free ice cream via Hotspot I can today and tonight, just to tide everybody over during the lean and hongry spell I see a-coming.

*When I was living in CLT, pretty much everybody I knew bitched loud and long about how awful Time Warner/Spectrum was, which I never could quite grok; once you got past the hassle of having to wait weeks for your install appointment, they were a-okay by me, I never had problem One with ‘em

Tripwires and telltales in the runup to war

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Mike

BCE runs through some of ‘em, which list includes one of our most beloved warbirds around these h’yar parts. So naturally, despite my near-total disinterest in Biden’s Needless and Futile War against Russia via the Ukraine, I couldn’t possibly restrain myself from mentioning it here.

Now that the wars are over, the majority of NG units are back to the trash they were BEFORE Iraq and Affy ‘went live’ so, in this case, my guess? Ass and Trash Mission to support bringing in MOAR trigger-pullers…My guess? A Battalion or Two of Heavy Armor (M1A2s in 1st Armored Division) as this Krainian ‘thang’ is almost a pure Armor fight…the fucked up thing is that we haven’t heard shit about any A-10s being moved

THATS the TRUE ‘tripwire’. Even tho the zoomies FINALLY got the A-10 kil’t off, they’ll still be in use, in the ANG/Reserves until 2029, but they’re RUSHING to get rid of them, even tho the Flying Turducken ain’t anywhere CLOSE to being a capable substitute. You hear/see/RUMINT the A-10s moving and sure AF war is coming ‘cos besides CAS (Close Air Support) Anti-Armor War is what the A-10 was literally designed for.

Now, the aforementioned A-10?

Yep…well….

Seems that they have 2 Full Squadrons of A-10s

Attached to the Army Reserve

Not for nuthin’ BUT

IF you hear of ANY Air-Notional Guard Units at Moody AB in Georgia or any Army Reserve (Air) Units of A-10s getting activated, THAT is the ‘tripwire’ IMHEO (In My Highly Edjamahcated Opinion) then it’s now ‘off to the races’ in the Kraine. The F-35 Flying Turducken, despite the claims, is utterly incapable of CAS (Close Air Support) never mind ackchully –doing– REAL anti-armor shit like the A-10 was like, oh, I dunno…specifically designed to do during the Cold War!?!

Myself, I’da put “Flying” in sneer quotes before “Turducken,” but that’s a quibble, a mere bagatelle—a matter of style, not substance, as such only barely worth even mentioning. Anyways. Onwards.

SO Long Story Short:

You hear about A-10 Movements, it means it’s on like Donkey Kong. There’s ONLY 281 +/- A-10s left, and literally nothing in our inventory that can do what it does. So WHEN they start moving, prep for fecal oscillation storm inbound.

Big Country carries on from there with more analysis of what’s really going on with all this shite, beginning with US armor (in)capabilites—a gruesome sit-rep enlivened by plenty of been-there-done-that-WAY-too-many-times insider know-how—to arrive at a conclusion most gruesome, but nonetheless inescapable:

We go? Lots of body bags are going to be needed, and as someone earlier mentioned on Gab, we’re going to need a LOT of Graves Registration folks…Never mind a slug fest at 500 meters with NO air support…Air Support IMO is going to be ‘spotty’ at best as even OUR Air Farce hasn’t had a peer-to-peer challenge since the 60’s, and even then, the North Vietnamese and SOME of the Russians flying like the ‘Flying Tigers’ (contract gigs for experience points) shot a LOT of our guys down, which is actually why ‘the Top Gun’ school got set up…and the Rus these days purely own the skies over the Kraine.

If anything Ivan now knows HOW WE FIGHT as we trained the fucking tard-Krainians in OUR BATTLE TACTICS for use AGAINST THE RUSSIANS. And apparently, ‘the Book’ we used was dated from the “Time of Stalin” ‘cos man, they sure as fuck have adapted, improvised and kicked the fucking toofuses in of the Krainians stupid enough to utilize OUR book on the implementation of war against the Russians…And we keep crossing lines without impact…Note to our Leadershit:

Wir sind soooooooooo tot

(Look it up)

Having gleaned a VERY small smattering of Churman words and phrases from Brack back in our schoolboy days, I could readily recollect (to my own astonishment) what wir meant, but was at sea completely with the rest. So I did as duly and lawfully instructed and looked it up, and the translation is as follows:

We are soooooooooo dead.

That’s the fact, Jack. Not that the politicos, punditry, and sundry other shitlib bags of reeking shit—rabidly, unalterably antiwar, each and every last one of ‘em, until they maneuvered Their Boy into the White (bag) House—will be in the least troubled by it. Hell, for those evil schweinhundfickers, that only makes Bribem’s Unwinnable War proposition even more attractive.mjnk

Nobody is coming for your guns

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Mike

Except when they are. And, y’know, DO.

‘We’re Shutting the Gun Shows Down’: ATF SWAT Team Raids Part-Time Oklahoma FFL’s Home, Confiscates His Guns
Russell Fincher is a high school history teacher, a Baptist pastor and a part-time gun dealer. He also coaches Little League in his hometown of Tuskahoma, Oklahoma, which has a population of around 151 souls.

Fincher, 52, has had a federal firearm license for three years. He has no brick-and-mortar gun shop. He’s what used to be called a “kitchen table FFL.” He sells most of his firearms at gun shows, including Wanenmacher’s Arms Show in Tulsa.

“Living in Southeast Oklahoma, if you don’t have a gun under $400, people ain’t buying it,” he said Thursday. “Rarely do people come to my house to buy a gun.”

In April, Fincher received a call from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. They wanted to do an inspection at his home. “I told them they were welcome anytime,” Fincher said.

Two ATF inspectors arrived a few days later. They spent three hours in his home. They took pictures of his 4473s with their cell phones, which Fincher has since learned is an illegal although common practice.

“Honestly, they were way nicer than I expected,” he said. “They said I had some guns that had traces on them, which concerned them. It concerned me too.”

And that was only the beginning of an ordeal which, in the end, cost an entirely blameless man who had committed no crime, never faced a single charge, and never had his day in court, an estimated 50-60,000 dollars’ worth of legally-owned firearms—guns that he will never, ever get back, no matter what he says or does. Bottom line:

“They have my life in the palm of their hands, and they have very little accountability,” he said. “I’m just trying to make a living and it takes three jobs just to make ends meet. Dealing as little as I have with the ATF, when you ask them a specific question, they’ll tell you it’s a grey area. Well, a grey area can send you to jail. I’m not Hunter Biden. I’m not going to get my weapon charges dropped.”

Nope, you won’t. The best you can hope for is to not be summarily and without due process thrown into the Amerikan gulag to rot alongside hundreds (thousands? Millions? Who among us can really know?) of other poor naifs who imagined they still had rights, a Constitution to protect them, and a country that bore any resemblance to the one the forefathers created.

Far be it from me to urge martyrdom on anyone, but the day has come when, the very minute that initial intel-gathering phone call from any FederalGovCo agency is finished, the recipient of said call should be running to load mags, then positioning him/herself in good cover by his front door, ready to open fire when several carloads of Feds arrive.

If people like Fincher must henceforth consider themselves to be targets, then they by God oughtn’t be the only ones present. From now on, there shouldn’t be any more “one-way” shooting ranges, not even in our own neighborhoods.

Read all of it—and prepare to be sickened, appalled, and infuriated. Then, just, y’know, prepare. Because you know as well as I do that sooner or later, they’ll be coming.

(Via Insty)

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